{"id":60197,"date":"2025-10-04T22:07:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T22:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/60197\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T22:07:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T22:07:06","slug":"coach-mike-jones-to-lead-new-zealand-team-at-oceania-powerlifting-in-christchurch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/60197\/","title":{"rendered":"Coach Mike Jones to lead New Zealand team at Oceania Powerlifting in Christchurch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\" Judea powerlifting coach Mike Jones will be assistant coach for the New Zealand team. Photo \/ Brydie Thompson<\/p>\n

Jones has eight years of powerlifting experience under his belt and has been coaching the sport since 2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not letting just anyone do it. I would suggest that I was selected because I\u2019ve had a decent track record and history of coaching in international competitions before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones said he was pleasantly surprised so many of his athletes were chosen to compete. Some would be competing to try their best, and others would be aiming to break records, he said.<\/p>\n

This would be Jones\u2019 fourth time coaching at an international event after the 2022 Commonwealth Championships and the Masters World Championships in 2023 and 2024. <\/p>\n

He said the Oceania Championship would host athletes from New Zealand, Australia, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Tahiti, Fiji, Nauru, Samoa, American Samoa, Niue and the Solomon Islands. <\/p>\n

\"JudeaJudea powerlifters Kelly Egan, Stacey Handley, Delwyn Evans, Karen Humphreys and Sela Kingi, with their coach Mike Jones in front. Photo \/ Brydie Thompson<\/p>\n

New Zealand\u2019s team of 110 would compete across the four days. <\/p>\n

Jones said every athlete needed some sort of coaching on the day of a competition. <\/p>\n

The trick, he said, was to do as much planning as he could before the competition. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf I\u2019m unfamiliar with an athlete that I\u2019m going to be working with, I get in touch with them, I talk to them, I look through their powerlifting history and I look where their strengths and weaknesses are.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said whether he was coaching one of his own or not, his plan stayed the same. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m there for them. They have 100% of my attention and resources. Sometimes you might be coaching two athletes at the same time, but same thing; we work as a team, we work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ruthless Barbell Club\u2019s Masters athletes ranged from 41 to 81.<\/p>\n

The competition will be Tauranga athlete Kelly Egan\u2019s first after starting the sport two years ago. The 50-year-old said when she started, her lifting total was 280, now she\u2019s at 360.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not easy at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she often thought she was too old for the sport before remembering there was an 81-year-old on the team. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe do it because we love it, and every time you do a PR [personal record], you want to get another one, and it\u2019s just addictive.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Jones was a professional and inspiring coach and she was proud to be on the team to represent NZ on the world stage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judea powerlifting coach Mike Jones will be assistant coach for the New Zealand team. Photo \/ Brydie Thompson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[665,1975,682,31867,5759,4487,1320,78,2176,194,7240,49539,1456,49540,117,111,43,139,69,2659,49538,49541,34592,5914,1227,7187,61,8489,80],"class_list":["post-60197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-around","tag-at","tag-being","tag-bench","tag-championships","tag-christchurch","tag-coach","tag-in","tag-jones","tag-kiwi","tag-lead","tag-medals","tag-mike","tag-necks","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-oceania","tag-powerlifting","tag-press","tag-ready","tag-regional","tag-tauranga","tag-team","tag-to","tag-trainer","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}