Mullingar lad breaks own Irish weightlifting record

A young Mullingar weightlifter has broken the all-time Irish bench press record in the 14-15 age category – a record he smashed himself last summer.

Conor Moore from Lakepoint, Mullingar – still 14 years old – pressed 110kg at his home gym recently, an increase of 19.5kg on his original record-breaking lift of 90.5kg last year.

While the lift was out-of-competition due to the ongoing coronavirus restrictions, but he hopes to make it official when competitions resume in the near future.

This new lift means that he is just 15kg away from matching the world record in his age category.

Conor took up weights in 2018 as a means of better preparing himself for competitive rugby (he plays with Mullingar RFC), but the niche sport of weightlifting has become as big a passion for him as he continues to break records.

Conor, whose rugby hero is Irish legend Brian O’Driscoll, hopes to make the cut for Leinster some day, and if he can break more records for bench pressing along the way, all the better.

Watch Conor (joined by his dad, Darren O’Reilly) achieve his record-breaking lift below: