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Accountant by day, muscleman by night – 63-year-old Mike Edwards is a proud British champion.

And he is not fazed by the fact that when he walks into the gym he is surrounded by people who are less than half his age.

The High Performance Centre at the Alexandra Stadium in Perry Barr, where he trains, is used to seeing young athletes who are aiming to compete in the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

But Mike has already achieved his goal as British veteran bench-press champion, a title he has held for three years, and this Sunday he prepares to defend that title at a competition in Solihull.

Mike who lives in Lea Manor Drive in Penn, Wolverhampton, said: “The most I have lifted is just over 122 kilos but I will be disappointed if I don’t do better than that on Sunday.”

An accountant with his own firm – M A Edwards Accountants Ltd in Kings Norton, most evenings see him changing from his suit into a tracksuit to attack some weights.

Although he started competing with weight lifting when he was 50 he has been a keen sportsman since his youth.

“I grew up in Wrexham in North Wales and I used to be the Welsh one-mile running champion,” says Mike as he speaks in between bench-presses of around 100 kilos.

“In my late 30s I started lifting weights but I had never had the confidence to compete, which of course I regret now.

“The simple reason that I did it was because I found I was good at it and one of the main reasons is my build.

“People who have long arms are good at dead lifting, because they don’t have as far to bend down to the ground to pick up the weight.

“I have short arms so I’m a better bench presser – you can tell where someone’s talent lies in lifting weights just by looking at them.”

Mike, who is married to wife Barbara, has two children – Alison, aged 36, who works for a pharmaceutical company, and Ian, 33, who has just been awarded a degree. He says his first competition was in Wolverhampton and it gave him the encouragement to carry on with the sport.

“The first competition I took part in was at the Atlas Gym on Willenhall Road in Wolverhampton 13 years ago,” says Mike who did his training in Wolverhampton.

“My son Ian and I used to compete against each other and so we thought we would have a go at an official competition

“I was so nervous that if they said they had cancelled it I would have been relieved, I was convinced I was going to come last.

“However, I came sixth out of 12 and it spurred me on to keep competing and six months after that I entered my next competition – and the rest is history.”

The competition on Sunday will see the winners from 10 divisions across Britain competing against each other in various weight lifting events.

Mike qualified for the event in November at a competition in Birmingham and has been working hard in the weights room at the Alexandra Stadium ever since.

He said: “Weight lifting is very simple – either you lift more than you have before or you don’t.

“There are no off-side rules and you don’t need a great amount of skill because around 95 per cent of this sport is just about pure strength.

“Having a desk job means I have to work harder in the evening in the weights room.

“Being an accountant, the most I have to lift in the day is a pen.”

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