October 13, 2019
KARACHI: Pakistan's emerging woman weightlifter, Rabia Shahzad, is on a roll as she won a gold medal in Hampshire Weightlifting Championship a day after bagging silver in Welsh Open Championship.
Continuing her victorious British tour, Rabia, 21, travelled to Basingstoke to participate in Hampshire Weightlifting Championship where she scored gold and added another medal to her tally.
The competition was held on the basis of Sinclair points — awarded after calculating the athlete’s weight with the total weight they lift during the competition — where the 21-year-old outshined eight other weightlifters to win the gold medal with 144.48 Sinclair points.
Speaking to Geo News in the UK, Rabia — who is in the 49-kilogrammes category — said she lifted 40kg in Snatch and 52kg in Clean & Jerk to earn the top position in the group of nine weightlifters.
“It was a different experience for me; events in the UK are usually held on the basis of Sinclair points instead of different weight categories and I am happy to be winning the gold medal here,” she said.
“I earned 144.48 points while the second-position athlete had got around 144 points, so it was a narrow win and a good competition,” added Rabia, who is the younger sister of Pakistan’s top badminton star, Mahoor Shahzad.