Now, this is a lift that will go down as one of the craziest saves we’ve seen at a weightlifting meet.
Thuridur Helgadottir is an athlete who is rapidly making a name for herself in her home country of Iceland — the world’s unofficial headquarters of Very Strong People — and Icelandic Weightlifting just posted a video of her nail-biting performance in a recent meet in Mosfellsbær. This might be all the proof we need that she has the true grit of a career athlete.
Helgadottir weighs in at 58.8kg, so while she generally competes as a 58kg athlete, she would be competing in the 63kg class here. In any case, this is a 1.8x bodyweight clean & jerk, which is extremely competitive, though it’s a little tough to work out if her knee touches the platform (which would make it a no-lift). If you watch the shadow, there’s a case to be made that she does indeed hit the platform (maybe?!) but it’s nonetheless impressive — most people would probably lose the lift after sinking that low.
Thuridur Helgadottir isn’t quite as well known as some of her fellow Icelandic athletes but she’s a serious contender who, like Sara Sigmundsdottir, competes in both Olympic weightlifting and CrossFit, and she’s made several appearances at the Reebok CrossFit Games. You can see some of her performance in the Regional Nate at last year’s Meridian Regional below, courtesy of the CrossFit Games’ Instagram account.
In an interview with BoxRox in 2015, she said that she and many young Icelandic athletes are motivated by the example of Annie Thorisdottir. At the time, her weak point was heavy deadlifts and her strengths were muscle ups, which we believe after watching this clip of her performing sixty kipping pull-ups in under ninety seconds.
We’re definitely looking forward to her performance in this year’s Regionals.
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Featured image via @icelandic_weightlifting on Instagram.
