Whanganui Girls’ College weightlifter wins gold at secondary schools championships

Mollie King has won the U15 grade at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Weightlifting Championships.

Young Whanganui weightlifter Mollie King is riding a wave of momentum into coming competitions with a win at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Weightlifting Championships.

Mollie, a Year 11 student at Whanganui Girls’ College, also came away from the event with three personal bests and now holds records in all three lift categories in her under-15 age bracket.

Her current record lifts are 74kg in the snatch, 91kg in the clean and jerk and a combined total of 165kg.

Mollie went into the competition thinking a win was possible but not assured so she stayed focused throughout.

“I always had hopes of it but I went in thinking, you’re going for the gold but there’s no guarantee on it, so to come out with it was pretty good,” Mollie said.

Having already held two of the three records in her age group before the competition, securing the third was an extra bonus.

“Originally I was holding two, so I broke two of my own records, there was one that was sitting under another girl’s name, and it was good to have them all covered.”

The competition was another achievement in what has been a busy year for King who won a bronze medal at the North Island Weightlifting Championships.

Her year is only getting busier, as she travelled to Christchurch on Wednesday for a national powerlifting event.

Mollie said powerlifting differed from weightlifting because it required three separate movements while weightlifting required two.

The division is comprised of three lifts - the squat, the benchpress and the deadlift.

Her bronze medal at the North Island champs also qualified her for the Oceania Junior, Youth and Under-23 Championships, which is happening in Samoa in October.

“And then as soon as I get back from that, about a couple days after we’ll be heading up to Auckland for national weightlifting,” Mollie said.

On top of this, she trains three days a week in weightlifting and another two in powerlifting.

With her win at secondary schools, Mollie said she had a lot of positives to look back on going into the next raft of competitions.

Her current goal is to get to a combined total of 171kg which would qualify her for the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships.

She has increased her combined record by 44kg since March this year and, with her new record of 165kg, she is now 6kg away from the goal.

“So it’s starting to become a lot more a lot more achievable.”

She hoped to make it to the mark by the end of the year.

Finn Williams is a multimedia journalist for the Whanganui Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in early 2022 and regularly covers stories about business, events and emergencies. He also enjoys writing opinion columns on whatever interests him.