I recently arrived back from India after taking part in the Commonwealth Powerlifting Championships in Pune, India.
The journey was problematic to say the least. I planned to travel with a friend, and so booked tickets from Heathrow rather than Manchester. But then he had to pull out, so there was a needless trip to London to start with. I had to leave Liverpool before 3.30 to use the off peak ticket, so arrived at Heathrow shortly after 6.00 pm for a 10.30 flight. It was to be the first of many waits!
There was a scheduled seven hour stopover in Bahrain, but the flight arrived half an hour early and the out flight was delayed by an hour, so the wait was around nearer nine hours. Not bad if I could have done a quick tour of Bahrain, but of course as a transfer passenger all you see is the departure lounge.
I arrived in Mumbai shortly before midnight and searched in vain for the person who was supposed to be waiting for me holding a ‘Commonwealth Powerlifting’ placard. There was no one there! After an hour of phone calls I made contact with the person who was meeting me. I told him where I was after being told he was outside and he said he would meet me there. Half an hour later, still nothing, so I called again and suggested that we seemed to be missing each other. “You stay there, I’m only 50 kilometres away”!! I was eventually met at 1.00, but we then had to wait another hour to meet two more lifters off another plane before we headed off.
Pune was 140 kilometres away from Mumbai, and in India that was a three hour journey. By the end of my stay I had began to get used to Indian driving (although I could never drive there myself) but the first experience was just crazy. Everyone darting into every gap, horns constantly blaring, red light being ignored... If you imagine an Oxford Street pavement at peak time on Christmas Eve, with everyone rushing and squeezing past everyone else, it was a bit like that – only in cars. Oh, and did I mention cars coming the wrong way down dual carriageways, using the hard shoulder for undertaking, no rear lights on most of the lorries, cobbled sections of motorway, lorries in the outside lane of the motorway doing about 2 mph on steep uphill stretches (I swear, that’s not an exaggeration!)?
We eventually hit Pune at about 5.00 am, got taken to our hostel, and literally crashed out. The door to door travel time, including time changes , had been 37 hours - 32 hours when you knocked off the clock changes. I shared the journey, and the room, with Paddy Jumelle. When we surfaced at 1.00 pm, we had a look round before walking to the venue. It soon became clear that there were no proper eating arrangements for us. The was an indigenous canteen in the hostel complex, but without appearing fussy we just couldn’t have eaten any of the muck that was on offer. More ‘I’m A Celebrity’ than food for a powerlifter.
Thankfully I wasn’t alone in my assessment and lifters were transferred to the Marriott Hotel a couple of miles away, and so all was well. For the next four nights we lived in the lap of luxury (and all for a very reasonable £37.50 pppn) and ate like kings.
On Thursday, the Scottish lifters (myself, Steve Cumming and Paddy Jumelle) went into Pune. It was 12 kilometres away, but the journey took nearly an hour. It would have been almost impossible to get there ourselves, so we hired a hotel car and driver for four hours. It’s hard to describe the chaos of India in a brief blog report, but it was good just to get out of the sanitized environment of the hotel and venue and get a flavour of the real India.
On Friday I went into coach mode and helped a number of lifters, and then on Saturday it was my turn. The hotel and the venue were about two miles apart, and we made our (frequent) way between the two mainly by ‘put put’ but occasionally by a designated car or on the organised bus. The venue was purpose built for the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games and was right out of the way, as was the hotel. There were no shops between the two (well nothing you would stop and buy anything at) and there was absolutely nothing on sale at the venue to help lifters to carb up after weigh in. No drinks, no snacks, no thing!
I should have been entered in the Masters 2 (over 50) class, but I insisted when I entered that I competed in the open instead. Without being big headed, I knew I was the best 50+ 100 Kg lifter in the Commonwealth and I didn’t need to do a 10,000 mile round trip to prove it. I wanted a stab at being the Commonwealth Champion, full stop!
I had planned to go 180/190/200ish, but in the warm up room my last lift (185 off a 4 board) felt far heavier than it should. Couple that with the next best lifter opening on 135, and I decided to reduce my opener to 175 to play safe. The 175 went up ok, and that effectively clinched the Commonwealth title. I took 185 for my next attempt, but my foot slipped on the (very slippery) carpet and so it was a no lift. I was also unofficially competing with the South African team coach (who was in the 125 Kg class) for the accolade of best over 50 lifter at any weight, and he hit 180 with his third lift. So my third attempt was to be the best 50+ - and up it went.
So, my first ever open title at the age of 53! Standing on the top step of the podium with ‘Scotland the Brave’ playing was incredibly poignant. I look miserable in the pictures, but believe me I wasn’t. First priority was not to make a fool of myself and start crying, which I managed – just. The tingle at the back of the head was indescribable, and also a feeling that money simply can’t buy, and all sorts of thoughts were flashing through my head. How could the little fellow from Stornoway have ended up here? And regrets that my dad didn’t live long enough to see me achieve this. And pride (and a little relief) that I'd not let down the hundreds of well wishers, especially all the Stornoway folk who had wished we well during my visit the previous month, and all the guys from the gym.
The Saturday banquet was a disappointment by previous banquets I had experienced. We were starving after the day’s lifting, but the organisers decided to put on a couple of hours entertainment and do all the awards before bringing on the food. The on Sunday, almost as soon as we arrived it seemed, it was time to go. We took a car from the hotel to Mumbai on Sunday afternoon. This time we got to see the scenery as we travelled in daylight. Pune is way up in the mountains, so it was a downhill journey back. As we came through Mumbai, we travelled through the sums where ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ was filmed. Incredibly depressing to see human beings living in such circumstances. What more can I say? I could have been a multi-millionaire and given away all my money and made no lasting difference whatsoever. Apparently there are 15 million people in Mumbai, and there is housing for 11 million... We all reflected on how lucky we were to be born where we were. But for an accident of birth...
The other Scottish lads took hotel rooms in Mumbai overnight, but as I was flying out at 7.25 am, with a 4.30 check in. I didn’t bother, but I went to their hotel with them until they went to bed. Paddy and I walked along Mumbai beach and ended up having a (very painful) massage on the beach, before Steve joined us for a real Indian meal in a real Indian restaurant before we left India. At 1.30 I made my way to the airport. I got there at 2, had a 3 hour wait till check in, another hour to get through ‘immigration’ (I thought that’s what you did on the way in?) and security, only to find the flight delayed by over an hour. We flew out about 8.15, and by the time I arrived in the departure lounge in Bahrain they were doing the last call for my connecting flight. A seven hour hop to London and it was all over.
It was like I’d been to another planet, not another country.
Huge thanks to Dee, without whose support and dog sitting I couldn't have done any of this.
