15 July 2005

Free State power lifter Petrus Erasmus is facing an uphill battle at the 2005 World Games in Duisburg, Germany this month as he attempts to repeat his heroic performance at last year's World Championships.

The World Games is a unique international event featuring non-Olympic sports. The 2005 Games, the seventh since the inception of the Games in 1981, is being held in the four German cities of Duisburg, Bottrop, Oberhausen and Mülheim from 14 to 24 July.

Erasmus, the only South African power lifter to qualify for the World Games, would do extremely well to reproduce his surprise third place in the 90kg bench press at the 2004 World Championships, when he competed against a veritable army of Russian and Ukrainian competitors.

He has been accompanied to Germany by referee Alan Ferguson and manager Neville Primich, who says standards are growing steadily in South Africa as power lifting becomes more popular.

"The qualifying standards for the World Games were extremely tough, and things weren't made any easier by the fact that we are lumped into the same region as Russia and Ukraine," said Primich.

"Still, Petrus has produced the goods at the highest level, and I have no doubt he'll be pulling out all the stops to make South Africa proud."

Power lifting is an international sport practiced in close to 100 countries on all continents. Athletes, both men and women from age 14 to 80, compete in given age groups and weight categories. Weight categories begin with 44kg women's class and end in the men's over 125kg class (unlimited).

Power lifters are unique athletes competing in a gruelling triathlon of human strength.

Three disciplines challenge men and women to lift multiples of their body weight to a prescribed sequence:

• lowering themselves from a loaded and erect position to a squat and getting back (squat);
• lying on the bench, bringing the load from arm extension down to the chest and back up (bench press); and
• raising the weights off the floor and assuming an erect position (dead lift).

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	World Games 2005  SA Sports Confederation & Olympic Committee

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