8:38am Friday 14th August 2009
A NORTH-EAST strongman has powered his way to national glory.
Jack Lovett, 26, won the British Natural Strongman Championship – despite weighing up to four stone less than some of his rivals.
Mr Lovett, of Ebchester, near Consett, County Durham, won three of the five events and was runner-up in another two events to be named winner at the event in Hertfordshire by ten clear points.
Tipping the scales at 16st 7lb – 105kg – he was lighter than the majority of competitors who weighed on average 20st 6lb – or 130kg.
He said: “It was a great feeling to win and I want to successfully defend my title next year.”
Mr Lovett, who started training two years ago in his own gym, Spartan Performance, in Medomsley Road, Consett, has a diet of fish, meat and protein shakes.
A former Newcastle Royal Grammer School pupil, Mr Lovett represented England at rugby as a schoolboy and at 17 was the youngest competitor in the Dragon Boat World Championships in China, in 2000. He also competed on a national level in shot putt and discus when at school.
Mr Lovett trained up four of his gym members for the strongman championships.
They were truck driver Rob Hawksby, 27; welder “Big Bart”
Bartosz Wisnieski, 26; Graham Baldridge, 41, and glass worker Craig Riddell, 27.
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