Carlos Petterson, local strongman and powerlifting favourite, should be representing Guyana at an upcoming international powerlifting competition and he said that his aim is to maintain his consistency throughout. On Sunday, Petterson rewrote the local national records for the squat, deadlift and total events in his 93 kg weight class in the men’s open raw division. The strongman, with a mantra of ‘records are meant to be broken’ was, at the time, qualifying himself for the 18th Annual FESUPO/ North American Regional Powerlifting (NAPF) Pan-American Regional Championships, carded for August 17 to 21 in Orlando, Florida.
Importantly, however, Petterson told Chronicle Sport, “I won’t say that I am preparing for a special competition, I just keep pounding and pounding so that when the competition comes up, I am able to focus more on what I gotta do.”

The qualifiers, held at the St. Stanislaus College auditorium at Brickdam, Georgetown, was the return of competition from the Guyana Amateur Powerlifting Federation (GAPLF)’s since the pandemic forced the events to a halt. And, for Petterson, his ability to lift and compete once again was something he welcomed.
“I’m glad that I was able to set back certain aims… My totals are there and now it is time to focus on the world (championships),” he said also His squat was 307.5 kg, his deadlift was 350 kg and his total was 350 kg. According to him, the totals he managed to lift now places him in the top four of the world. Lifters from Ukraine, Sweden and the United State (US) are the competitors he has his mind set on beating. And he assured this newspaper that he has enough “in the tank” to train and become stronger.
All the athletes who would have made the GAPLF’s 2020 shortlist must now re-qualify in order to be eligible to compete at the NAPF Championships in August. In addition to Petterson, there were also guestlifts from Paul Adams, Wazim Mohamed and Nadina Taharally on Sunday.