Western Australia’s Newest Champion Zoe Tchernakoff Says Age Is No Barrier
If you are aged 40 or even 50, you don’t have to be flabby.
That’s the message from one of WA’s newest national champions, Zoe Tchernakoff, who celebrated her 51st birthday this week after beating women less than half her age at the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness Australian titles in NSW.
The former teenage ballerina has sculpted her incredible figure over more than three decades and wanted others to share in her passion for a healthy life.
“You can always start and achieve what you want,” the East Perth personal trainer said.
“It’s such a waste of time thinking you’re over the hill when you’ve still got your future ahead of you and goals to achieve if you want to put the time in.
“If you can get off the couch and start feeling good about yourself, you’re going to be a happier, more productive person.”
Tchernakoff said her most recent and biggest competition win, which came 25 years after her first in 1992, was a pleasant surprise and one which now had her eyeing international events.
It was a just reward for many years of effort in a discipline that now requires competitors to be muscular as well as retaining a sense of femininity.
“I started my first job in a gym back in the days where there were the leg-warmers and the aerobics,” she said.
“I saw the guys and the girls training with weights in the gym and got hooked from there. It’s been a lot of years of constant training and that’s probably the thing — just consistency and keeping at it for a long period of time.
“It’s something that you’ve always got. It doesn’t matter what else is happening in your life, you can always go to the gym and train. It’s something you can always control when other things that happen in life you can’t always control.”
Her 20-year-old son Lewis said he admired his mother’s commitment.
“I’m very proud, ecstatic actually that she’s doing what she loves,” he said. “I don’t take her on in the gym, I don’t think anyone would take her on in the gym.”
From: The Western Australian, November 12, 2017
