The Beginning:
This week we take a break from our regular blog series of our travels this summer to introduce you to Taurai Bayisayi who wrote this weeks blog and will become the first president of the Zimbabwe Powerlifting Federation.
Taurai Bayisayi
If feels like a lifetime from when I first walked in to a gym four years ago. I remember seeing big guys lifting heavy weights and thinking, "wow, I couldn't possibly do that". I've always been very passionate about physical fitness and taking care of my body. Having played sports in the past helped simplify the transition into the gym life. Some two years back I was watching motivational videos online, and I stumbled across Ronnie Coleman. From that day forward, I knew I was never going to be the same. I felt a challenge because if someone could lift so much weight then why not me? Why couldn't I challenge myself too? I wanted to be the best that I can be, to push my body to the absolute limit. So I did! I embarked on the greatest journey ever, challenging my body to be the best.
I have to say though, it was hard training without a clear end goal as we neither had strong man competitions nor powerlifting in Zimbabwe. In 2015, that's when we had the first strong man competition. I was not prepared, but decided to take part to gain some experience in as far as competitions were involved and also simply for the fun of it.
But after the competition that's when I realised I was not a strong man competitor. Yes, I was passionate about training hard and lifting heavy so what was I going to do? In 2016, I started preparing for strong man again, because I really didn't have any other options. After the competition was canceled several times, and knowing that I wasn't terribly interested anyways, I decided to quit for good. So again, I asked myself, “Now what do I do?”
There still wasn't powerlifting in Zimbabwe, which is the sport I really wanted. So, I thought to myself, enough was enough! If anything was going to happen to bring powerlifting to Zimbabwe, I was going to have to take the lead. I needed to be the first to form a powerlifting governing board. But I had no idea where to even start. As luck would have it, I was introduced to some guys who were on the same path as I was. It's bean only a few months but together we have made small but significant steps towards introducing powerlifting to Zimbabwe . My goal is to help develop the sport throughout the country and compete internationally.
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