At just 20 years of age, Emma Weydert is quickly making a name for herself on the powerlifting circuit, holding 22 national records and a silver medal from this year's European championships.
Powerlifting is a sport in which competitors compete in bench presses, deadlifts and squats to see who can lift the most weight.
Just a handful of women practise the sport in Luxembourg, including Emma. She trains 3-4 times a week in Windhof, as well as three weekly gym sessions.
"I've always been someone who liked to push myself to my limits and was always over the top," she says. Before powerlifting, she tried her hand at all sorts of other sports, ranging from ballet to athletics, basketball and horse riding. In powerlifting, competitors seek to push themselves further than their physical limits, particularly in the "equipped" category, where they wear specialised gear to help them lift even more weight.
Emma says the equipped training is intense. "It sometimes really hurts with the suit, you have to really want it."
Online, Emma shares her powerlifting journey under the moniker “emma_on_the_wey”. However, amid the plentiful praise, she sometimes gets negative comments. "I've had some really silly comments, saying I'm not feminine enough, but I don't care because I love what I do."
Next year, Emma will compete in the under-63kg weight class, where she has international records in her sights, particularly in her speciality of deadlifts.
Report in Luxembourgish:
