EVESHAM Rowing Club sent two lifters to the British Weightlifting Under-18 Championships at Derby last Saturday and both emerged as champions.

Becky Rutherford competed in the 53K ladies class and was under immense pressure immediately when an unfortunate accident in the warm up room meant she dropped the weights bar on her leg causing severe bruising.

With her warm-up severely restricted, her first lift was a genuine pressure situation. However, in front of a large and appreciative crowd, she was easily successful in the first lift and went on to succeed in five of her six lifts which was enough to take the title.

Kate Wilkinson, competing in the 58K class, was set a much sterner task.

Having set a new personal best total only two weeks earlier at Woking, she had the awesome challenge of needing to lift even more to win.

In the snatch she was successful in all three lifts - the last a new best of 40K. However, this was 2K below the favourite from Dover.

On her last lift in the clean and jerk Kate again lifted a new best of 52K. Her challenger from the south coast failed on her last lift giving the two women the same total of 92K with Wilkinson having the lighter body weight the new champion.