The story below is from our September/October 2019 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
Photo Courtesy of FireBreather Media
Shanice Hairston of Salem is achieving national and international goals as an amateur strong (wo)man athlete.
Ordinarily, she is a USPS mail carrier, but at times this 26-year-old morphs into a power-welding superwoman who lifts massive weights with relative ease. No, Shanice Hairston of Salem doesn’t don a cape and fight supervillains, but she does put on athletic gear and try to vanquish women who are just as strong as she.
Hairston, a 2014 Virginia Tech graduate, is an amateur athlete in the sport of strongman (strongwoman). Strongman is a sport in which athletes compete in a display of raw strength. Besides lifting traditional barbells, the athletes also lift massive stones, race with heavy weights slung over their backs – and at times pull 10,000 pound trucks for distance. The sport is scored by maximum repetitions, shortest time, longest distance or maximum weight lifted.
It’s all about welding power. “’No matter where you come from, your socioeconomic background, your class, no matter how you identify. Strength sports is about how well you do,’” said Hairston in a previous interview.
And in the three years she has been competing, she has welded power well, coming in second earlier this year in the amateur heavy-weight division of the prestigious Arnold International Strongman Classic.
Besides taking first place in regional competitions, she also has put together a string of three top four finishes in national and international events. Her accomplishments have been achieved within a period that normally takes athletes many years to accomplish, one strongman official told her last year, she recalled.
Hairston said she plans to compete in the North American National in September at West Palm Beach, Florida. As an amateur, she is not paid to participate. She depends on public donations to fund her travel, food, lodging and registration expenses. If you are interested in supporting Hairston, please send tax-deductible donations via PayPal to snh50@vt.edu.
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