THE Hardcore Barbell Club was founded in 1999 when they opened their doors as an Olympic Weightlifting club in Rosignol, and for the next seven years dominated various weight classes in Olympic Weightlifting under the watchful eyes of head coach Farouk Abdool.

The Region Five Club broke records in almost every weight class, many of which still exist, but are considered frozen records because of IWF weight-class changes.

According the East Berbice Gym Trainer, which had five national champions in Olympic Weightlifting, the Club was even offered a scholarship for one of their athletes to study in Hungary.

“A few years later, we delved into powerlifting and to no surprise we continued our winning streak until this day …our gym is, as we consider it is ” old school ” merged with advanced training programmes. We have the bare essentials, no fancy machines no expensive calibrated weights but still dominate whenever we compete. we have produced champions year after year,” Abdool.
In the 2023 senior national equipped powerlifting competition, five lifters represented the entity

They were Rondel Thomas, who won two gold medals in the 66kgs class; Saif Abdool, who won a gold medal and a silver in the 93kgs class; Timothy Bagla, who won gold medal 74kgs class and Marlon Wilson won gold medal 93kgs open and gold medal in the Masters respectively.

Head Coach Fazim Abdool won a gold medal in 120kgs class and a gold medal in the Masters 1 respectively. He also won the overall best lifter title which is the most coveted title at the senior national level

The club won seven gold medals, one Silver and copped the Best lifter award, while six records were broken by team Hardcore on that day.

Saif Abdool broke four sub junior equipped records in the 93kgs class they are; Squat: 463lbs /210kgs erasing the old mark set by himself at 190 kgs, Bench press: 264 lbs/ 120 kgs, erasing the old mark set by himself of 220lbs /100 kgs, Deadlift 463lbs /210 kgs erasing the old mark of 407lbs /185kgs and Total 1188 lbs / 540kgs erasing the old mark of 1012lbs/ 460

Fazim Abdool broke two records in the open and masters 1 category respectively; the open equipped deadlift of 651lbs/296kgs erasing the old mark set by himself of 650lbs/295.5 kgs and the Masters 1 equipped deadlift record of 651lbs /295.5kgs erasing was the old mark as Edwards lifted 642lbs/290kgs.

One more record that was broken on that day was Marlon Wilson who deadlifted 562lbs, erasing the old mark of 550lbs set by fellow teammate Nigel Phillips.

“We have on numerous occasions secured the best lifter title which is the most coveted title in Guyana, but for some strange reason doesn’t seem to get any mention in the media,” lamented Fazim Abdool. (Sean Devers)