Weightlifting: Golfer becomes powerlifting champ

Rep golfer Tom Lee walked into a Rotorua gym 18 months ago intending to add muscle to his slight physique to get more distance off the tee.

Now he has eight Waikato-Bay of Plenty powerlifting records to his name.

Lee, 18, got addicted to lifting, ditched the golf clubs and is now throwing tin three times a week in training, in between working as frozen foods manager at a Rotorua supermarket.

Although he was hampered by a back injury and was some way off his best at the weekend's North Island powerlifting championship in Tauranga, the former Bay of Plenty rep golfer was still good enough to win his junior men's (19-23 year) 66-74kg grade with a combined total of 457.5kg - a 185kg deadlift, 90kg bench press and 182.5kg deadlift.

"I came over with back- stabbing pain and was hoping by the time I got out of the car after the drive it had gone," Lee said, "but I was warming up on 160kg [squat] and it was sore, so my original intention of opening on 190kg had to be dropped back. I was hoping for a 210kg squat but with the back I had to be realistic."

Lee's bench press is his weakest discipline, with his chest and triceps underdeveloped compared to the rest of his bulging physique, with the Kiwi-Korean filling out to an impressive 74kg at his peak from his pre-lifting weight of 54kg.

"I started going to the gym for golf, with intention being able to drive the ball further, but seeing progress with the lifting so quickly and being able to handle that much weight is quite a buzz and I put my focus on the gym and trying to get big."

Once a +1.5 handicapper, Lee said with a fulltime job, hours of training and weekend competitions he wasn't missing swinging a club, even after watching his 17-year-old sibling Peter go all the way to the New Zealand amateur final at Mt Maunganui before losing to Gore's Vaughan McCall.

"With golf if you're not practising virtually fulltime then you struggle."

Lee has had five rounds of golf in the last 18 months, pounding the ball further but having lost a lot of his pre-powerlifting flexibility.

Whakatane's Reuben Simanu, whose extensive achievements include national bench press titles from 2001-03, the national three-lift crown in 2003 and sixth placing at the world bench championship in 2001, made a winning return after recovering from a hand injury, breaking the Oceania deadlift record with 310kg, with his 955kg total also an Oceania record.

His 370kg squat was a national record and he narrowly failed at 390kg, which would have been the heaviest weight ever lifted in New Zealand.

Tauranga 78-year-old Felix Esterbauer set an unofficial world deadlift record of 217.5kg.