Ieuan Hood is a quiet, unassuming powerlifter where he is the latest in the family to get involved in weights, choosing to do power-lifting so that he could compete at the Commonwealth Power-Lifting Games in Sun City, South Africa.
 
He competed in the respective disciplines of Squat, Bench Press and Dead Lift - and is making such great strides that at 20 years of age he is now a proud holder of a bronze and silver medal which he won when he recently joined his pals Jay Rogers and Lewis Davies, plus the amazing Helen Carrington, in making the trek to South Africa.
 

Weight lifting in the family

 
It is fair to say weight lifting is in the Hood family because his sister Chloe has been a former Welsh champion (after previously representing Wales in cricket!) and is now a highly respected weight-lifting coach, who set him on the right road before he decided against the stereotyped weight lifting, in favour of the more strength-orientated power-lifting discipline.
 
His mother Lindsey was also a weight-lifter a number of years ago when she was a Wonnacott and then married Paul Hood, who wouldn’t have been interested in weights but was an excellent all-rounder in cricket who could bowl fast and hit the ball many a mile!
 

Started to just get a little fitter

 
Ieuan’s involvement in the gym started about two and a half years ago, when he had acquired a bike and wanted to get fitter – so he spoke to his big sister and then went along with his pal Jay Rogers.
 
Ieuan had previous dabbled in the sport when he was starting out as a teenager, because his uncle, Scott James; had installed a mini-gym in his garden shed in Milford Haven, and then he followed his cousin Jake as they also tried lifting weights in Jake’s bedroom but they had to be really careful not to put the weights back down too heavily because of a potential danger to the floor – and living-room ceiling below!
 

Built for power-lifting

 
So perhaps it was only natural that Ieuan should take to power-lifting but he found the technical discipline of ‘The Snatch’ hard to master and found that his 6feet 5inch, 18+stone, frame was far better suited to power lifting.
 
He was soon working hard at developing his skills in all three aspects of the sport, namely the ‘Squat’, ‘Bench Press’ and ‘Dead Lift’; soon recording personal bests in the squat (100kgs), the bench press (90kgs) and dead lift (130kgs) for a combined total of 320kgs.
 

Full focus really paid dividends

 
“I was really pleased with that but as I started to go to competitions, I could see how much there was still to do so I really began to focus and it has paid off because my personal bests now are squats (240kgs), bench press (162 kgs) and dead lift (270kgs) – for a combined total of 662kgs – more than double those when I had just set out.”
 
To put that in to perspective for those of us still finding the metric system hard to comprehend that’s the equivalent of a few very large gentlemen!
 

Not the lost comfortable journey to South Africa

 
Ieuan competed in the over 120 kgs class at Sun City (and again for those of you like me that’s not metric yet, that’s over 19 stone!), and all the Welsh competitors were expected to make their own way there – and the journey took 12 hours so he readily admits it wasn’t the most comfortable flight he has ever enjoyed because the plane was on the small side and he says he could have done with two seats, but could only afford one of them!
 
They had a couple of days to acclimatize and quickly settled in to their work-outs alongside the other Welsh competitors and coaches.
 

Made so many new friends – and got in the medals too

 
“There were over 30 countries from around the world competing and the atmosphere was amazing as we made good friends with other powerlifters from places like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Tonga, plus the Scottish and English squads.
 
“I knew from the outset that I would need to be at my best to have a chance of a medal and when the combined weights from the squats, bench presses and dead lifts were totalled up I was very delighted - and relieved - that my name came up in third place so I had the bronze medal in a high-quality field”
 

And finally . . .

 
There were also medals awarded for the individual sections and Ieuan knows that if he can maintain his current rate of progress then he would have a chance in two years’ time of doing well in all of them.
 
“But I hoped that I might get on the medal rostrum again in the dead lift - and I did manage it - going one better as I received the silver medal!
 
“Even that long trip back home wasn’t so bad with my medals tucked safely in my bag,” Ieuan admitted with a typical chuckle, “and now I’m already working hard in the gym and saving hard in work so that I can compete in the next Powerlifting Championships, this time in Canada.”
 
That will be in two years’ time and we at PembrokeshireSport.co.uk are confident, having seen Ieuan perform his immense training programme, that he will be jetting out to North America, hopefully on a more comfortable aeroplane, and returning with more medals to add to his already-impressive collection.