Guyanese Winston Stoby creates history at World Powerlifting Championship

By Avenash Ramzan

Winston Stoby promised to be Guyana’s first powerlifting World champion. He delivered on that promise. Stoby created history at the World Powerlifting Championship in Killeen, Texas, by becoming the first Guyanese to earn the title when he destroyed the competition in his category.
Competing in the 74kg M2 category, the 53-year-old Stoby copped gold and broke the world record in the dead lift, collected gold in the squat and a bronze medal in the bench press. He lifted 225kg in the squat; 140kg in the bench press and a stunning 272kg in the deadlift, after entering as the number one ranked lifter in his group.
His mark in the deadlift erased the 265.5kg he lifted on his way to gold at the Caribbean championship in the US Virgin Islands earlier this year. With the new lift, he strengthened his position as Guyana’s and the Caribbean’s lone world record holder in any category.
Overall, Stoby, who trains at the Kingsrow Barbell gym in Georgetown, finished with a total of 667.5kg, 52kg more than overall silver medallist, Koichi Taniguchi of Japan, who finished with 615kg.
Mark Sigala of the United States of America had to settle for the bronze with a total of 610kg.
It must be noted that Stoby was the lightest, in terms of bodyweight in his division. He boasted a weight of 72.86kg, while Taniguchi had 73.64kg and Sigala 73.46kg. The soft-spoken athlete also made an attempt at lifting 277kg to break his newly established 272kg deadlift record, but failed in that bid.
Speaking to this publication from Texas yesterday, the new world champion and a man of few words, said he dedicates his triumph “to God, all Guyana, family, friends, supporters and the Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation (GAPF).”
In an interview before his departure last week, Stoby, a double gold medallist at the 2012 Caribbean championship, had expressed supreme confidence of becoming world champion. “I’m very confident of copping that World title. I’ve been training very hard and very much prepared right now,” Stoby, who first represented Guyana in 1993 in Maryland, had stated.
In an invited comment, president of the GAPF, Peter Green, said that while this a monumental achievement for Guyana, the work now has started, as the aim is to produce more champions in the future.
“I am happy for my country and happy for Stoby. All the collective work put in by the corporate sector, the lifters and the executive has paid dividends. Let’s hope it continues this way,” he said.