World University Championships Weightlifting 2005 France.

From 7th to 10th of July the World Cup for Students took place in Villeneuve Loubet, a small town at 10 km from Nice. This world Cup was formerly called the "World Championships for University students". It has been organised since 1998 and is open to students till 28 years old.

On the 6th I started my 1250 km drive with Sarah De Coster who would compete in the -53 kg class. As Ingrid Teeuwen from the Netherlands had no coach I was coaching a second girl.
It was a long drive but the region was quite interesting with the nice Mediterranean weather and corresponding nature...

There were a lot of participants (about 87 male competitors and 41 female) and the density of the results where quite high. The organizers could be proud with the participation of absolute top lifters with world champion medallists like Aleksandra Klejnowska, Dominika Misterska (POL) and even Olympic Champions Taylan Nurcan (TUR) and Shi Zhiyong (CHN)

The teams were lodged in 3 different hotels. One of them located next to the sporthall. The others at less than 10 minutes by buss. Apart from some missing busses the organization went perfectly.

The training hall, competition hall and restaurant where all grouped in a very nice sport complex.
Temperatures around 30 degrees Celsius made the training- and competition hall rather hot, but enough water was at disposal of the teams.

Training:
Coach Tom Goegebuer (-62 kg , Belgium) and his athlete Sarah De Coster training the day before competition.

Competition:
The competition hall was nice and the competitions itself passed of perfectly.
Unfortunately the spectators were very spare.

There was a big screen with replays of the lifts.

Here Marilou Dozois-Prevost (-53) from Canada.

Sarah De Coster had of course one of the best coaches in the world ;-), but she even surprised her coach by not showing too much stress and lifting all her national records.
She snatched 53, followed by a new best of 57 and 60 kg was very close but it fell backwards at the very last moment. In the jerk she lifted 68, 72 and a new best of 75 kg which gave her 132 kg total and the 6th place.

(These two pics were taken by R. Bessems, who also competed in 62 for the Netherlands)

	Sarah De Coster (-53 BEL) and Ingrid Teeuwen (-58 NED) relaxing at the swimmingpool
	The coach is learning to fly ;-)

My Latvian friend Maris Andzans was deleted from the final entry form so he could only lift out of competition. I coached him and he reached a nice 292 total in the 77 kg class. You can also enjoy his photo report

	Maris and Sarah in Villeneuve-Loubet
	Maris at the harbour of Villeneuve-Loubet
	... and the coach at the harbour

The last evening there was a closing banquet as usual.

	Belgium, the Netherlands and Slovenia at a table on the banquet
	Japanese team together with two girls from Guatemala.
	Sarah with her two bodyguards from Ecuador (Idrovo -69 & Culcay -62).