Gold medalist at last month’s Pan America Powerlifting Champion-ships, Gumendra Shewdas would become Guyana’s youngest ever World Champion if he garners sponsorship to compete at the International Powerlift-ing Federation (IPF) World Sub junior and Junior Championships later this month in Texas, USA.
After lifting a total of 497.5kg at the Pan Am Championships, the Commonwealth record holder has been listed as the favourite to win the gold and world title in the 53kg sub junior category at the Championships billed for August 26-31. According to the final nominations released by the IPF, his nearest challengers are Dalton La Coe of the USA (Total 455kgs), Kazuma Arai of Japan (Total 435kg), Alexei Kulakov of Russia (Total 432.5kg), Tetsuharu Katsuta also of Japan (Total 405kg) and Erick Aguilar of Ecuador (Total 377.5kg.