NI Open
-2023
Niamh Gallagher
Niamh's First Competition
This was Niamh's first time on the platform. You could safely say nerves were high for this one.
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We underwent the dreaded weight cut on this one. We had to get into the U69 category as we thought we would be more competitive there. Niamh lost 7ish kilos here, but over a good long period of time so it never really affected strength, the only issue was that we kept things real tight to the mark towards the end of the cut so we could "max out the category" for a little advantage on strength.
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With fluctuations in weight, we were a little worried on the day that we'd not be able to compete. However, after a tense wait in the weigh in queue, Niamh made it into the category nice and close to the mark. First stressor down.
Squats up first. First lift is always the most stressful part of a competition, a bad first lift can put you into a funk for the rest of the day.
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We got into the warmup area and honestly warmed up a little fast, so it left us with a long time between our last warmup and first lift. I think it was nervousness and just wanting to get going that did us a little dirty here.
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We opened with 110, an absolute blinder of a squat, giving us one less stressor. This led us onto 115, then 120 - real strong squat session overall. Slight twist on 120 but we got the total on the board. ONTO BENCH.
I think our performance on squats and the release of nerves from a good first outing got to both our heads a bit. With all the stress relief from everything going well, we unfortunately got a little cocky with our numbers selection. We warmed right up to our opening weight of 55 and timed it much better.
We opened really well, hitting 55 with absolute ease, I remember the MC saying "textbook close grip press."
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This however - cost us second place.
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Having done 55 so easily we jumped to 62.5 - 2.5kg off her best rep ever. She managed rep two, however got red lighted for a slight downward movement. I respect the judges opinion on this, if I had something to say I'd become an official myself, but I did head multiple people saying how this was a bad call. We had to then go back out and try it again, but this time we had spent too much and couldn't get it up. Meaning we had lost 7.5kg off the planned total.
Going into deads - we had been humbled a bit by benchgate. We stuck to the plan:
125 - good lift
130 - goood lift
140 - GOOOOOOD LIFT
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Honestly, if this story has a moral, it's "stick to the plan." When we deviated from it, things went wrong. The irritating thing, we had an advantage over the lifter who placed above us.
If we had stuck to our plan on bench press and had hit 60kg, even if we failed our final rep, we would have been 2.5kg over silver, who placed 2.5kg above us.
All things considered this competition was absolutely fantastic as a debut for a lifter. Placing in 3rd place on first try is nothing to sniff at - especially since Niamh hadn't been in a competitive environment before now. It obviously was a little bittersweet, but this is one of my proudest moments as a coach.
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I've trained Niamh since her introduction to the gym and seeing her go off to her own competition AND DO WELL was absolutely amazing.
We have a competition lined up and Niamh is already massively surpassing these numbers. Doubles at comp max - triples at comp max - 15kg over comp max.
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We've been cooking up something special for the next time round. (We'll be sticking to the plan this time too.)