Meet the apologetic powerlifting champion

Jacqueline Bentley

Taking up power lifting later in life has had all sorts of benefits

Jacqueline Bentley is not what you’d call a show off. In fact, she comes across as being rather sheepish about being a power lifting champion at the age of 74, but nonetheless, that she is – she has just become the ABPU European Champion and Record Holder for her age and weight in Bench press and Deadlift in the championships in Poland last month.

She told The Chiswick Calendar how she had come to powerlifting rather late in life, and of the unexpected benefits it has had for her.

“I started because I realised I was not as fit as I should be and decided that at the age of 73, I really should do something about it”.

Like most of use, Jacqueline has struggled with her weight throughout her life, managing to lose some here and there and get a bit fitter for a while, but always putting the weight back on and never quite managing to effect that elusive permanent change of lifestyle.

“I discovered a bloke eight doors down from me who did weight training, so I thought if I went to him, I would not have any excuse for not going”.

The bloke eight doors down was Ali Hasanzade, a personal trainer and World Champion strength coach, who started Jacqueline on some exercises and told her she was good at it.

“I would have been a bit disparaging before. I didn’t realise how much there was to it”, she told me.

Jacqueline with coach Ali Hasanzade

Jacqueline is an analytical psychologist and Jungian analyst who has always lived her life in an intellectual realm, with no particular interest in physical exercise.

She was impressed by the science of power lifting – the maths involved in working out what is right for a person’s height and weight and how to increase the weight they can take incrementally.

“It’s something I had just never considered before”.

She found that as well as getting fitter she was losing weight and keeping it off for the first time in her life.

Something else she had not expected was the camaraderie involved in power lifting. Though she went to Ali for one-on-one training sessions, he soon persuaded her to take part in competitions, where she found herself part of a power-lifting family.

“I have been so impacted by how generous people are – the enthusiasm and the friendliness. There’s a whole community of people involved”.

Apart from being 74 and only having started doing it the previous year, her main hang up about taking part in competitions was the way she looked.

“I have always been embarrassed about my body and you have to wear this ghastly singlet for powerlifting, but I thought: ‘am I going to not do yet another thing because I was told at the age of ten my legs were ugly?’.”

I put it to her that as a psychologist she, more than most, had the tools for dealing with that, and she countered that she also knew how difficult it was to overcome it.

She took part in her first competition in Alton in Hampshire and won and then went on to the European championships in June and won again. She now aims to compete in September 2026 in the World championships, which will be held in Manchester, and she is looking for a sponsor.

Her reticence in boasting about her achievements comes from the fact that she was the only competitor in her class for age and weight both times, so she feels slightly sheepish about it.

“People were stopping me and congratulating me. They were so enthusiastic it was quite humbling. Women are celebrated for succeeding and achieving a personal best”.

Even so, she said: “I would much rather have beaten someone else to get the title”.

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