Kylie Parry surprised even herself with her winning performance at the North Island weightlifting championships in Auckland over the weekend. Parry. 30, from Carterton was the favourite to take the title in the 63kg grade so it wasn't so much her victory which pleased her but the weights she lifted toachieve it. Her 49kg in the snatch was a best-ever while only once before has she beaten her clean and jerk total of 64kg, and that was when she was competing in the 69kg class and even then she managed just 0.5kg more. Apart from winning her grade Parry's aim in Auckland had been to qualify for the national championships to be held back there on October 15 and to do so her combined total had to be at least 102.5kg. So to come up with a personal best aggregate of 113kgs was considerably better than she had anticipated. "Honestly, I didn't imagine I would get anywhere near that," she said. "I really only had three weeks training so I wasn't expecting too much." Parry said the intense competition provided by the South Island champion in her grade, Sheena Phillips, had been a major catalyst to her performance. The two were neck-and-neck all the way through with Parry having just 0.5kg to spare in the end. "The competition was great. It could have gone either way right to the end," Parry said. It will be Phillips who will again be the biggest threat to Parry at the nationals and the latter agrees her presence will be a powerful motivating factor in her preparation for that event. "It's always easier to put in the hard work when you know that you are in for a tough battle," she said. Parry is currently the only competitive weightlifter in the Wairarapa but she is hopeful of changing that situation in the not-too-distant future. As the co-owner of a Carterton gymnasium she is keen to start coaching aspiring weightlifters there and is optimistic the sport could "take off" in the local region. "It's something where size or age is no barrier and it's an ideal way to keep in good physical shape," she said.
