2018 St. Catharines Athlete of the Year: Anje Wynands

St. Catharines’ 2018 Athlete of the Year came from humble athletic beginnings.

“I spend 35 years of my life believing I couldn’t do any sport,” Anje Wynands said. “At first, it was other people telling me that and then it was kind of the truth.”

That truth was evident at an early age for the 2018 Canadian Powerlifting Union champion and the 2018 International Powerlifting Federation’s World Classic Powerlifting Championship’s overall silver medalist.

“If we were playing tag, I was the slowest,” the 42-year-old St. Catharines resident said. “If we were doing dodgeball, I was the biggest target.

“I thought I couldn’t do any sports and I got super big and really couldn’t for a while.”

When her mother died from an obesity-related illness, the then self-described 300-pound coach potato realized she was headed down the same path and committed to becoming fit.

The native of Warren, Penn., who moved to Niagara the weekend after 9/11, started out with walking and worked her way through aerobics, running, Zoomba, boot camp, and crossfit before finally arriving at powerlifting and strongwoman events.

“Now to be named athlete of the year, I am an athlete for real,” she said, with a laugh. “It is really nice to be recognized as an athlete.”

She received news of the award after receiving a letter from the office of St. Catharines mayor Walter Sendzik.

“It blew me away,” the mother of two said. “Three weeks later, I am still trying to get my head around it.”

She is delighted and humbled by the honour and hopes she can use the recognition to inspire others.

“My ultimate goal is that I can talk to more people about how my life has changed and I had those lies about I couldn’t do this or I couldn’t so that and I would never be this,” she said. “It has changed completely.

“I want other people to acknowledge their lives and what do they believe about their lives that isn’t true.”

The message is that everyone can turn their life around.

“Be who you are meant to be and not feel that you aren’t good enough because you aren’t doing whatever,” Wynands said. “I tell everybody that you don’t have to do what I am doing, but you have to find your passion and go for it.”

Wynands’ award-winning year started at the Canadian Powerlifting Union’s national championships. She won gold in the masters division in squat, bench, deadlift and overall.

“I won overall by almost 200 pounds which was huge, considering I had a pulled hamstring and lifted far less than I planned on, especially with a deadlift of only 467 pounds,” she said.

At the International Powerlifting Federation’s World Classic Powerlifting Championships in June of last year, she won silver in the bench, gold at dead lift and silver overall with a total of 1,050 pounds over the three lifts.

“I had some adrenal fatigue and I just came in tired so I didn’t lift the numbers that I wanted to,” she said, adding she wanted to dead lift more than 500 pounds and ‘only’ managed 467.

“I came in as the strongest of athletes and maybe I came in too high on my high horse and it was an eye-opener. But it was my first time at the worlds. I was a newbie and I learned a lot there.”

She described the world championships as a completely different situation.

“Normally when you are power lifting, you are an individual athlete and it’s you and whoever you are lifting against. When you go to worlds, you are on a team, and you have world coaches. Mentally I was off.”

She described is as a humbling experience.

“I learned to be humble and stay focused,” she said.

After the world championships, she took several months off from power lifting to recover from the adrenal fatigue.

“I felt like sleeping for months and I’m finally starting to feel like myself again,” Wynands said.

She has started to ramp up her training again with an eye on a Strongwoman competition she is registered for in September.

“It is more fun than work, where power lifting is a lot of work,” she said. “Strongwoman is fun because they throw in all sorts of different elements.”

She has competed in seven strongwoman competitions, winning five gold medals, one silver and one bronze. Among her strongwoman highlight are flipping an 800-pound tire and pulling an 11-ton transport truck.

Wynands, who began powerlifting and competing in Strongwoman competitions in 2015, will continue to work on her power lifting goal of dead lifting 600 pounds.

“I love it,” she said. “I really, really love being strong.”