Singaporean powerlifter Matthew Yap, who powerlifted about three times his body weight to set a new squat world record at the World Classic Powerlifting Championships in June this year, made headlines once again for his impressive achievements. At the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championships — currently happening in Alappuzha, Kerala, in India — the 18-year-old broke two world records in the men’s Under-66kg sub-junior division.
On Tuesday, Yap’s squat effort of 215.5kg surpassed his earlier world record of 208kg in Minsk this year. That was followed by a new national record of 135kg in the bench press, and a new Asian record of 237.5kg in the deadlift, Channel NewsAsia reported.
Add that all together, and the teen powerlifter was bestowed the honor of being the new Asian champion, beating Swede Eddie Berglund’s previous world record of 585kg in the Total category with his 588kg.
What made the victory all the more sweeter was Yap’s arduous journey just getting into the competition. Arriving about 5kg heavier than the required weight limit, Yap was forced to take drastic measures to reduce his weight at the weigh-in, which was scheduled two hours before his first lift on Tuesday.
The Republic Polytechnic student told The Straits Times that “this victory was definitely a sweet one”, as he “sat in the sauna, close to blacking out” in his “final ditch attempt” to make weight at 66kg.
“Because I was five kilograms over the under-66kg weight limit, I had to do it or risk being disqualified,” he explained to Channel NewsAsia. “My brother was already telling me not to go ahead and that it would be okay for me to pull out, but I didn’t want to waste my efforts and money in coming to the event.”
“The sauna was just brutal… but I remembered my elder brother telling me once, that the records and the medals didn’t matter. It was the journey which matters in the end,” he added. “The drastic weight cut, however, also meant two possibilities. The first was that my physical performance could be reduced, and secondly, it would mean severe muscle cramps as the competition wore on.”
According to TODAY, Yap’s hands and calves were indeed cramping as he got ready to make his final lift on Tuesday, but it was his promise to his late grandmother, who passed away from pneumonia at 70 just two months back, that kept him going.
During the course of the competition, his sole goal was to beat his rival, Kazakhstan’s Dmitriy Chebanov, who had defeated him in Minsk in the Total category by 32.5kg.
When he finally did this time around, it was an overwhelming sense of satisfaction that all his hard work had paid off.
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