An average teenage girl these days is busy experimenting with cosmetics and building a following on social media platforms.
Britney Mack is not your average teenage girl.
This 16-year is busy lifting more than twice her body weight and bringing home gold medals for Guyana from around the globe. All while juggling school and training.
The student athlete’s latest feat came last weekend in Vancouver, Canada where she competed at the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships.
In the 52kg sub-junior class, Mack squatted (110kg), bench-pressed (45kg) and dead-lifted (102.5kg), a total of 257kg to earn her second international gold medal in three months. The previous gold came at the Pan-American and South American Powerlifting Championships which was staged in Sao Paulo, Brazil in September.
And these feats have been achieved after competing for less than a year.
Mack is extraordinary.
So how did the fifth form North Georgetown Secondary School student get into the iron sport?
Said her father and national lifter, Osmond ‘Billy’ Mack, who was part of Guyana’s gold medal heist in Canada: “When I went to St Croix last year to compete at the Caribbean (Powerlifting) Championships she accompanied me. She saw some girls there at 14 (years) and she was inspired by that. They were doing world lifts unequipped and she was inspired.”
According to the elder Mack, his daughter started training last year at Life’s Gym and the fruits of her labour first paid off at the Novices Championship in February where she won the female best lifter award.
Britney, who is a top five student in her class, then suited up for the Claude Charles Master’s and Intermediate Championships in July where she again took the top overall honours.
From there, her confidence and her lifts went through the roof and she was able to perform like the Golden Girl she is at the two overseas events.
Mack, who happens to be the first local female sub-junior powerlifter to cop gold at international meets, has aspirations of returning to the Commonwealth Championships in South Africa in two years to rewrite the record books.“Going to South Africa for the next Commonwealth Championships she will still be a sub-junior,” her dad and trainer highlighted. “And her goal is to leave records that will be hard to break.”
In the meantime, Britney will enjoy adding more silverware to her growing collection and standing out from the typical teenage girl. (Emmerson Campbell)
