Dean Lukin
...he Dinosaur’ because he was so big. His mother also had trouble buying clothes for him. From the age of 5 he spent all his school holidays at sea with his dad and at the age of 9 he was allowed to help lifting the fish, which demanded considerable strength. Later on after trying a lot of sports his life was transformed in 1975 when Leon Holme had a talk with the school to introduce weightlifting. Lukin decided to try the gym 4 nights a week and within weeks Lukin lost weight and could lift over 140kg. In June 1975, though still a junior, he came 2nd in the State senior titles and in September won the national Schoolboys championship in Melbourne. His 1st senior championship title came in 1980 and his brother David also became a competent lifter and between them they broke 36 State records, held 14 Australian records and set Commonwealth records. After winning the super heavyweight division at the 1982 Commonwealth Games, he became Australia’s main hope for a weightlifting medal at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Just before the games Lukin had only trained for 16 weeks. After the snatch section of the super heavyweight division, Lukin was in 3rd place. When the American Ma...