Rory van Ulft, a 7-year-old Canadian gymnast, has been raising eyebrows with her weightlifting achievements, recently becoming the youngest under-11 and under-13s US Youth National Champion in history.

Rory took up weightlifting about two years ago, as a way of becoming stronger. She had started doing gymnastics but learned that she could get injured doing certain things, if she wasn’t strong enough. She started lifting weights in the the snatch and the clean and jerk styles, under the careful supervision of a trainer, and gradually developed her strength to the point that she now lifts weights that some adults would probably struggle with. She can snatch 32kg, clean and jerk 42kg, as well as squat 61kg, and deadlift 80kg using an Olympic women’s bar.

Photo: Victor Freitas/Unsplash

“When she first started, I hated it,” Lindsay Noad, Rory’s mother, told CBC. “It was so scary watching [her] lift those heavy, heavy things that I could barely lift. “Now I look at her and I just think, ‘I am so proud of you!’ She’s really cool and she can do amazing things.”

The mere thought of a seven-year-old girl lifting weights several times her bodyweight is controversial, with many pointing out the risk of injury Rory is exposed to, but both her family and her coaches disagree, claiming that she has both a family doctor and a sports medicine pediatrician looking after her, and that her coaches never load her with excessive weights. Achieving proper technique, in order to avoid injuries, is also key in her training regimen.

“For myself and a lot of other coaches abroad, even one injury in a child is too many,” Greg Chinn, founder of JustLift Gym, in Ottawa, said. “So for a child Rory’s age, we never load her with what we would consider to be maximum weights.”

Last year, Rory van Ulft finished eight out of thirteen kids at the U.S. National Youth Championships, in the 13-and-under girls’ category, despite being the youngest competitor by two years, and the lightest by almost 10 kilograms. She made quite an impression, so no one was shocked that at this years championships, she managed to take the number one spot.

“Based on her current Sinclair total, Rory is not only the strongest seven-year-old in the world, she is likely also the strongest seven-year-old girl or boy who has ever lived, for whom there are verifiable competition results,” the girl’s father, Cavan van Ulft, said.

“In terms of Rory’s relative strength compared to all the national champions in the lowest girls’ developmental age and weight categories, which vary from country to country, there is currently no one better competing,” Cavan added.

Rory’s impressive Sinclair total of 213.738 at this year’s U.S. National Youth Championships makes her the best pound-for-pound 11-and-under lifter in the United States.

The 7-year-old, who wears fake, temporary tattoos when competing, considers herself a gymnast first and foremost, but says that she loves getting stronger as a result of weightlifting, as this allows her to do new things in her gymnastics routines.

“I like getting stronger. Being stronger lets me do more and get better at everything I try. I don’t think about what came before, or what will come after. I don’t think about anything. I just clear my mind and do it,” she said.

Rory van Ulft isn’t the first super-strong pre-teen we’ve ever featured on Oddity Central. A few months ago, we wrote about Lyza Brooks Mosier, a 10-year-old girl who wowed the internet with her chiseled abs, and about Brodie Bowen, whose deadlifting routine at age 7 sparked controversy online.