Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Apr 04, 2009 Sports
By Michael Benjamin
In Guyana, whenever a group of persons congregates at the street corner to discuss sports activities one can almost bet that cricket will be the central point. Moreover, the feats of West Indies batting star, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, have taken center stage and the intrusion of any other sports personality, is merely a preamble to the central point of discussion.
One is hardly likely to hear heated discussions surrounding the feats of weightlifters.
In fact, folks are so ignorant of the intricacies of weightlifting that the historical aspects would fail to hold their attention for more than five or maybe ten minutes.
This may be so, but once there are discussions and debates of weightlifting, the name Sydney Paul is bound to surface.
Born August 3, 1919, Paul decided to be a weightlifter at the age of 21. He remembers that the late Bacchus brothers, Osman and Eteem, owned the only weightlifting gym, on North Road, between Wellington and Camp Streets. The brothers had invested in a 500lbs York exercise machine and everyone ventured into this gym to learn the intricacies of the sport.
At age 21, ‘Skipper,’ as Paul is fondly called by his charges, possessed a chiseled physique and it did not take much to woo him into weightlifting. “We learned to perfect the snatch, clean and jerk, bench presses and other lifts to hone specific parts of the body enabling us to become proficient in the different lifts,” he remembers.
‘Skipper’ enjoyed the training sessions at the Bacchus’ gym but he yearned for the day when he would have been able to construct his own training facility. The problem, though, was that he had neither the money nor the contacts to own the kind of machine like the Bacchus’.
His dreams came to fruition when in 1940 he built a small gym at his home in Waterloo Street, South Cummingsburg. With limited cash to purchase equipment, he decided to improvise. “I bought a length of steel pipe, a few pounds of lead, two truck wheels and a few cogs and constructed a machine that served my purpose,” he intimated.
After constructing the gym, Paul was faced with the challenge of choosing an appropriate name. “I had this admiration for a popular strongman who worked in a circus. His name was Eugene Sandow,” Paul reminisces. This strongman would tie lengths of rope on two horses and then tie the two ends around his body while the two horses simultaneously pulls from the east and west, respectively, trying to dislodge him. “The horses, strong as they were could not shift Sandow from his position,” Paul revealed. Added to this, Sandow performed miraculous feats at the circus. “He would lift a 900lbs elephant with relative ease, said Paul. He was so impressed with the feats of this circus strongman that he decided to christen the gym after him.
Following the establishment of the gym, opportunities arose.
“A weightlifting enthusiast who had bought a weightlifting machine similar to that of the Bacchus brothers decided to sell his equipment since he was migrating to the USA. I immediately grabbed up the offer,” Paul remembers. He cannot remember the exact price he paid for the machine but he said that they are normally sold by the pound. This was the inauguration of the gym that even up to today, provides meaningful activity for weightlifters.
The construction of the Sandow Weightlifting Gym triggered off enthusiasm from among the few persons in the fraternity. “Soon after I formed my gym, the Bacchus brothers joined forces with another weightlifting enthusiast, Dr Cephus Whitney, and decided to form a weightlifting Association.” As such the British Guiana Weightlifting Association (BGWA) was born.
The establishment of a local association triggered a boom and before very long young enthusiasts started to invest in such activities, enhancing the infrastructure. The next step was to formalize local activities with the international body. Paul intimated that the executives of the BGWA then sought affiliation status from its parent body, the FIHC, a French entity, now rechristened, ‘The International Weightlifting Federation (IWF).’
Those were the good old days. Paul now examines the current situation and experiences moments of chagrin. “The sport is experiencing great challenges,” he says. He also cites a lack of interest demonstrated by the present administration in nurturing new talent to the sport. “We need to incorporate youth involvement as well as create more gyms for them to practice their skills,” he laments.
Paul also feels that the time has long past for a more concerted effort to incorporate youngsters into the sport. “History has proven that the children from the rural areas are more versed in the adaptations of the sport,” Paul opined.
He also lashed out at the local sports administrators. “It is very sad that even our sports administrators are demonstrating ignorance of the intricacies of the sport.” He cites one such faux pas during the tenure of former President of the Guyana Olympic Association (GOA), the late Justice Rudolph Harper. It so happened that the Russians, through their embassy, donated a set of weightlifting equipment.
The Harper executive was uncertain of the purpose of the equipment and instead of consulting with the local weightlifting association, kept the gears in a storeroom where they eventually rotted. It was only after the local weightlifting association invited the executive of the GOA to a weightlifting meet that these executives were able to understand the importance of the Russian gift.
All of this is now water under the bridge. Paul is confident that provided weightlifting executives are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices while employing the appropriate initiatives, the sport can rise, like the mighty phoenix, to its rightful place among the other disciplines. He has done more than enough for the sport he loves.
The ‘Sandow’ Gym in East La Penitence remains, a fitting sign of years of love and dedication for the sport. His name may not trigger the spirited debates as that of West Indies batting star, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, but rest assured his feats in the weightlifting fraternity are tantamount to those of ‘Chandy’ on the cricket field. Sydney Paul has earned the right to be our sports personality as well as the sobriquet of ‘The Shivnarine Chanderpaul of weightlifting.’
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
Apr 19, 2024
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