Yee Chun Leong
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
LIYANA SIDEK made history as she became the first Bruneian woman to compete at the 2022 Asian Weightlifting Championships in Manama, Bahrain recently.
She set a new national record in the women's U-55kg category after lifting a combined total of 125kg (snatch and clean & jerk).
The result betters her previous record of 117kg.
"Being given the opportunity to attend the Asian Championships is an honour, especially being the first in the country to do so," said Liyana in a recent interview with BruSports News.
"To be competing amongst athletes at that level is a chance that doesn’t come by often as it is one of the biggest stages in weightlifting," she added.
It wasn't all smooth sailing for Liyana leading up to the Oct 6-16 competition but she is satisfied with her performance.
"Preparations wasn’t exactly how we wanted it to go, but we’ve learnt to accept what we can’t control and move forward," she said.
"I wasn’t hitting my numbers as consistently as I’d like to so I had my doubts about making my lifts on the competition stage.
"A few days before competition day, I also had something weird going on with my left arm and I wasn’t able to straighten it," added Liyana.
"We did what we could to get our bodies as close to being competition ready.
"I guess that’s what we mean by working with the cards that we’re dealt with and with what we can control," continued the national weightlifter.
When asked if she expected to get a new record despite the difficulties, Liyana replied: "I had expectations for myself. I had numbers I wanted to hit and numbers that I wanted to touch on the competition platform, for the sake of my confidence.
"I was looking to beat my own record and previous competition total, and although the plan was to beat it by two kg, I took the win anyway," she added.
Meanwhile, her husband Nashrul Hj Abu Bakar placed 14th overall in the men's U61kg category.
He produced a lift of 223kg (100kg snatch and 123kg clean & jerk).
His record remains at 227kg which he managed at the 2022 Commonwealth Games.
"Being able to go out of Manama healthy was the goal as I sustained a neck injury in training two weeks prior to the competition," said Nashrul.
"So I had to do some damage control in training - having to take almost a whole week off just rehabbing my injury.
"As competition kicked off, adrenaline kicked in and I got to admit the snatch went off plan and I'm really glad it did," he added
"After that was to at least match my CWG total but it just wasn't my day at the clean and jerk," Nashrul concluded.
