Beyond expectations: Loh Cen Hao celebrates his gold medal effort at the Asian Powerlifting Championship.
KUALA LUMPUR: December will be a month forever etched in powerlifter Loh Cen Hao’s memory.
For he not only achieved a career breakthrough by winning gold in the Asian Open Powerlifting Championship in Tashkent, Uzbekistan last week but he also officially proposed to his girlfriend Lee Sing Ying at the same time.
Cen Hao made the wedding proposal the day after winning gold in the Asian championships on Dec 11 and it was sweet music to his ears when her soon-to-be partner for life agreed.
“She said yes. Winning the title of Asian Champion is a great honour but the only title I truly want is to be your love forever.
“I cannot wait to spend forever with you,” said the 25-year-old on his Facebook account on that day.
For Cen Hao, the road to sporting glory has never been a smooth one.
Cen Hao was a silver medallist in shot putt at the 2018 edition of the Malaysia Game (Sukma) in Perak before he decided to switch to powerlifting.
“I continued doing my weight training (after leaving shot putt) and was told by some of my peers to take up powerlifting.
“I then looked up Malaysia’s powerlifting national records and saw I was not too far off (from breaking them),” he recalled.
But without a coach at the time, Cen Hao had to learn by himself to improve his strength by reading strength and conditioning journals in addition to applying methods learnt during his days as a shot putter.
“It’s the culmination of a year filled with doubt, negativity, and struggles after finishing fourth place in Asian championships last year.
“This is my redemption for falling my deadlift attempt in competition for more than almost 16 times for the past two years (yes I have counted it).
“To everyone who doubted me, and even to the naysayers. I’ve proven my worth. This is for everyone who believed in me and stood by me,” said Cen Hao, who claimed gold in the overall category for 105kg category with a total of 822.5kg.
“It was against all odds for me to be Asian Open powerlifting champion. I was ranked third on the nomination list and I had to fight against many good lifters from Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia, China and others.
“The immense amount of pressure during the meet is really a whole new level for me. But you know they say – pressure really makes diamonds.”
