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By William Bailey
Former gymnast/sprinter Shania Bedward has vaulted herself onto the fast track to a potential Olympic berth in her new sport, though the weightlifter of just three years still has a heavy task ahead of her at the final Paris 2024 qualifying competition on Monday in Thailand.
“From a young age, I just wanted to do something and pursue it at the highest level,” recounts Bedward, whose parents were both sprinters. “I was a very active kid growing up, but I really did thrive in sprinting 100 and 200 metres, and I think a lot of that practice has really transferred over to weightlifting, in terms of helping me be a more explosive athlete and just being really strong in general.”
Bedward is a freshly-acquired Olympic hopeful for Ottawa. The 27-year-old took up the sport in Toronto, but she joined forces with local coach Spencer Moorman and began representing his new CanAm Barbell Club last year.
Bedward splits her time between the Canadian Sport Institute – Ontario near home in Toronto, CanAm on Colonnade Road (where Moorman often works with her one-on-one), and Oakland, CA (where renowned coach Max Aita crafts her training program).
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“I feel I’ve been training very well,” Bedward told the Ottawa Sports Pages on the eve of her departure for Thailand. “I’ve really tried to refine my technique in both the snatch and clean and jerk so that when I get there, I don’t have to worry about fixing any details like that, I can just be there and just go lift the weights.”
That is one of Moorman’s key tasks as a coach come competitions – keeping track of how many attempts his athletes have made, timing between lifts, and the appropriate weight to try in order to secure a desired placement or ranking.
“I’m there to try to let Shania just be the weightlifter and the athlete and not have to worry about ‘Oh, I need to hit this number or climb up this ranking list,'” Moorman explains. “I need to make it so that it’s like, ‘Hey, kid, just come out here and be you,’ and let somebody else deal with that.”
The IWF World Cup competition in Phuket will add an additional challenge because Moorman won’t be there to coach Bedward in person. With limited funding for national sports organizations, Weightlifting Canada wasn’t able to pay for Bedward’s trip, so she had to finance it with the help of a gofundme fundraiser. A ticket for Moorman would have added too much to the tab, but he’ll try to contribute what he can virtually.
Further adding to Bedward’s uphill battle is the fact that her natural 76-kilogram division is not one of the categories to be contested in Paris, so she’s also matched up against athletes who weigh up to 81 kg. Bedward previously stormed onto the international weightlifting scene by finishing in the top-10 at the two most recent World Championships in the 76 kg division.
“The first year I started weightlifting, I went to the Canadian nationals and then I made Team Canada and went to worlds – all in my first year,” she smiles. “It was kind of insane.”
Weightlifting has been punished with fewer Olympic athlete entries and divisions due to its difficulties controlling doping. Though the L.A. 2028 Games perhaps represent a better opportunity to take the Olympic stage when her 76 kg event should be back in the rotation, Bedward is still keen to take a shot at Paris 2024 by making it into the top-10 rankings for the 81 kg category.
She has a long way to climb from her current slot of 35th with a 229 kg lift total from a previous international qualifying event (the #10 performance is currently 253 kg), but she’s been on the rise recently.
In her CanAm debut in early winter, Bedward set an Ontario record with her 132 kg clean and jerk lift and posted a personal-best total of 235 kg.
“Right now, I am approaching it in a way where I just think about that I need to do my best,” she signals. “It’s about heading into this with the right mindset. To be honest, I really enjoy competing. You get a huge adrenaline rush. It’s not for everybody, but I love competing and getting to see other countries that are at the competition. It’s pretty cool.”
– with files from Dan Plouffe