Ukrainian Chevening Scholar and weight-lifter Bohdan Bon won a bronze medal for Great Britain at a major international powerlifting championship.

Bohdan’s medal was achieved in the -83kg category of the International Powerlifting Federation World Classic Bench Press Championships 2018, which took place in Finland from 14 to 19 May.

Bohdan is from Kyiv, Ukraine and is currently studying an LLM in International Banking and Finance Law at the University of Leeds.

He was selected for the Great Britain team for the 2018 IPF championships after becoming the British Classic Bench Press Champion in the -83kg class. He also broke the Yorkshire and North East Powerlifting Federation record in this category.

Bohdan will be competing in other championships throughout this year and Chevening wishes him good luck as he balances his studies with his preparations for these tournaments.

Chevening asked Bohdan how he started his journey in powerlifting:


 

‘I adore powerlifting because of its fairness and reward for hard work. In contrast to other sports, in powerlifting everything depends on you, and the quality of your preparations.

If your deadlift in your weight category is bigger than the deadlift of your competitor – you win.

My home country is famous in this sport and I had the world’s best trainer in powerlifting: Viktor Naleykin. With a tremendous investment of time and efforts I have been improving my technique and strength.

I became a bronze medal-winning national champion, three times champion of Kyiv in powerlifting and received a master of sports degree.

This February after thorough preparation and tough training I won the British Bench Press Championship and was invited to the squad training to be selected as a British representative in the World Powerlifting Championship.

Moreover, it requires a massive amount of knowledge and sophisticated calculations of the weights you need to lift, using special ratios and formulas of your training.

Powerlifting is more about intellectual work and planning than pure work with weights.’