GAPLF Senior Championships 2018 Hardcore Barbel Club powers to Best Gym Award

Dec 07, 2018 Sports

The Rosignol, West Coast Berbice based Hardcore Barbel Club (HBC), home of Overall Male Champion, Vijai Rahim was on Sunday evening last named the Best Gym when the curtains came down on the 2018 Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation (GAPLF) Senior National Championships.
A total of 26 athletes from nine (10) gyms competed but when the last lifter exited the platform and the numbers were tallied, HBC emerged as the best of the lot and received a trophy and a $50,000 cheque compliments of the Ministry of Social Cohesion, Department of Culture, Youth and Sport.
They were led by this year’s Overall Male winner Vijai Rahim who copped gold in the 74kg Open Equipped Class; Timothy Bagla was golden in the Junior Equipped and Junior Open 66kg Classes; Ramzan Mohamed emulated both Rahim and Bagla with gold medals in the 112.3kg Open Equipped and Junior Equipped categories.

Farouk Abdool happily accepts the Best Gym trophy and cash prize of $50,000 from Director of Sport, Christopher Jones.

The other gold medalist on the team was Fazim Abdool who was the best in the 105kg Open Equipped division. Nigel Phillips competing in the 93kg Open Equipped class copped silver while Hardat Tarson, Bombed Out.
Wit its motto being, ‘Unless you Puke, Faint or Die, Keep Lifting’, Hardcore Gym was officially opened back in 1999 but prior to that, members were mostly involved in Olympic style weighlifting and was the best gym in the business at the time.
Back then, the gym was not only the best gym in Olympic style weighlifting but also held the distinction having broken 22 records in the same sport; the Best Lifters at the time were Bhojnarine Persaud (junior) and Fazim Abdool (senior).
It was after this era of weightlifting that the gym started to focus its strength towards powerlifting which has produced some of the best lifters the likes of Rahim, Phillips, Hardat Tarson, Bhojkumar Jagnarine, Fazim Abdool and Farouk Abdool, just to name a few.
The Hardcore Barbel club crew proudly states that they have won the Overall Best Gym accolade about four times before and has stated that if such an award is at stake yearly, their name would be inked on the trophy.
One challenge that is facing the gym though is female lifters but they are working assiduously towards changing this in 2019.
Also in its 2019 wish list is the procurement of an Original Powerlifting Weights Set. Kaieteur Sport was informed that the current members lift in possibly the smallest gym in the country with almost all the lifting being done with homemade equipment.

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