Before he left for Poland and the junior world powerlifting championships, Westwood High School alum Arron Gonzales said his goal was to go to the event, not make any mistakes and see what he could do against the world’s best.
After his performance last week in Poland, the rest of the world is looking up at him.
Gonzales won the individual lift title in the squad, finished second in the bench and third in the deadlift to capture the overall world title for the heavyweight division.
That’s right, Palestine’s own Arron Gonzales is a world champion.
“It makes me feel pretty proud,” he said this week. “I’ve gone just about as far as I can.
The former Panther strongman took the lead at the meet after the first round of lifts, when he lifted 410 kilograms (more than 903 pounds) to earn his individual lift gold.
“I killed it,” Gonzales said with a laugh about his squat.
“I said make no mistakes, and I made no mistakes,” he said.
From there — armed with a 10 kilogram lead — the group advanced to the bench.
There, Gonzales lifted 265 kilograms (more than 584 pounds) but was outlifted by Russia’s Alexey Bilinets by 15 kilograms, which gave Bilinets the lead heading into the meet’s finale, the dead lift.
“My mindset was I was already ahead, so to just stay in the game on bench,” he said.
Gonzales said he knew the deadlift wasn’t his strongest, and that there were others at the meet that could lift much more.
But, it didn’t matter in the end.
Gonzales pulled up 302.5 kilograms (more than 666 pounds) in his final lift. While that number was only good enough for third overall in the deadlift, it was enough to earn Gonzales the world title.
“My strategy was to see exactly how much more they could do and just try and stay ahead by as little as possible to pick up the win,” he said. “It came down to my last deadlift.”
He ended up topping Bilinets by 2.5 kilograms to win the meet, with Poland’s Jarota Kamil finishing a distant third.
His individual gold was also part of a bigger coup, one that Gonzales seemed even prouder of than his own achievements.
He was one of five U.S. lifters to win individual gold, giving the United States a perfect team score and lifting it to a world team title.
It is the first team title for the Red, White and Blue in a junior world championships that also featured Russia. Russia finished third, behind Kazakhstan.
“Yeah, when I won, if felt great,” he said. “But, what felt better is the whole U.S.A. team, we did a clean sweep. We won five gold medals.
“It’s just awesome.”
He said the team became just that over the 10 days they were in Poland, rooting each other on throughout the meet.
“It was more (camaraderie) than I’ve ever felt,” Gonzales said. “I’ve never gotten that close to any set of people within a week. Everybody knew everything about everybody.
“Whether it started at five in the morning or five in the afternoon, we were all there cheering each other on.”
The world championship ends what has been a whirl-wind month for Gonzales, who graduated from Westwood in 2009.
Earlier this month, he became the first person to ever win three-straight Natural Athlete Strength Association (NASA) world cup titles when he won his meet in Oklahoma City.
Then, he made the trip to Poland, where he spent 10 days in the country both before, during and after the world championships.
With his dad with him, Gonzales got a glimpse of a different kind of lifestyle.
“The way the do things is way different than us,” he said. “Everything is done by hand...it’s just more laid back and there’s not too much to do.”
He also got to experience something a lot of people don’t, when he and his father made a trip to Aushwitz, the old Nazi concentration camp, which is located outside of Krakow, Poland.
“I remember reading about it in history class,” Gonzales said. “It’s one thing to read about it and see pictures, but to be there and feel the presence of it, it’s saddening but it’s also cool.”
Gonzales headed back to Sam Houston State University this week, and said his collegiate lifting season with the Bearkats kicks off in November.
He’s got one year left until graduation, and then another powerlifting journey will begin, one that Gonzales hopes will take him all the way to South America in 2016.
For the Olympics.
“There’s only one other step I can take, and that’s going to be the Olympics,” Gonzales said. “I told myself, ‘Wait until after you graduate.’ So, I’ve got one more year left. Then, I’m set and I can start training.”
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Sports editor Justin Rains can be reached via email at jrains@palestineherald.com
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