North Bay weightlifters win three gold

OTTAWA — Ontario’s top weightlifters met in Ottawa Saturday for the provincial senior championships and the final team selections for the senior nationals coming up in June.

North Bay’s final medal tally was three gold, two silvers, and two bronzes, and, in the final team standings, North Bay placed first among the seven competing clubs.

In women’s competition, Melissa Ladouceur and Daralynn D’Angelo led off, winning the first two weight classes contested.

Ladouceur, the provincial record holder at 48 kilos, posted a total of 117.5 kilos, by way of 52.5 kilos in the snatch and 65 in the clean and jerk.

D’Angelo, meanwhile, won the 58 kilo division with lifts of 47.5 and 62.5. Valkyries, Kayla Turner and Stavrula Liritzis , took silver and bronze respectively in the same class as D’Angelo.

On the men’s side, a Norsemen athlete also started the competition with a win in the lightest class contested. Al Pilon was crowned the provincial 62 kilo champion for the third year running and made the Canadian standard in the process.

Pilon snatched 87.5, and clean and jerked 107.5, for a total of 195 kilos.

Dan Harling of North Bay was third in the 69 kilo class. Harling, the current Ontario junior champion, and recent winner at the Ontario Winter Games, totaled 192.5 kilos.

Next up for North Bay was Richard Found in the 85 kilo class. Found posted a total of 215 kilos, good enough for silver in his division.

North Bay’s final entrant was Trevor Brown in the hotly contested 94 kilo division.

Brown, the Canadian Junior gold medalist at 94 kilos, was lifting in his first Ontario seniors and managed to place fourth with a 225 kilo finish.

Two former North Bay athletes, now members of the Sabaria Weightlifting Club of Mississauga, also won medals. Buck Ramsay topped the men’s 85 kilo class with a whopping 280 kilo total, while Michelle Bernard placed second in the women’s plus 75 kilo division with a final posting of 180 kilos.

The top scoring teams based on mens’s and women’s points combined:

1. North Bay, Norsemen/Valkyries – 612

2. Belleville, Apollo – 516

3. Sarnia, Fury - 315

4. Mississauga, Sabaria – 243

5. Ottawa, U or Ottawa - 225

6. Toronto, Steel Machine – 168

7. St. Catharines , Taktika - 159

The top formula male lifter was Akos Sandor of Mississauga. Natalie Williams of Sarnia won the female award.

Athletes named to the Ontario Senior squad for the senior nationals June 12-13 in Valleyfield, Que.:

Women:
48 kilos
Melissa Ladouceur, North Bay

63 kilos
Jillian Halligan, Toronto, Isabelle Despre, Ottawa

75 kilos
Kara Yessie, Sarnia

+75 kilos
Natalie Williams, Sarnia, Michelle Bernard, Mississauga

Men
62 kilos
Al Pilon, North Bay

69 kilos
Ken Smith, Sarnia

85 kilos
Buck Ramsay, Mississauga

94 kilos
Rick Friesen, St Catharines, Jason MacLean, St. Catharines

105 kilos
Akos Sandor, Mississauga, Alex Power, Ottawa

+105 kilos
Sean Gawley, Belleville

Team Coaches – Steve Sandor, Mississauga, and Larry Sheppard, North Bay.
________________________________________________

PHOTO: Melissa Ladouceur, the junior provincial record holder at 48 kilos, posted a total of 117.5 kilos, by way of 52.5 kilos in the snatch and 65 in the clean and jerk to win her division at the Ontario senior weightlifting championships Saturday in Ottawa.