A last-minute injury to a Moose Jaw and District Sports Hall of Fame powerlifter recently held him off the international stage.

Wayne Cormier, who now lives in Swift Current, was poised to compete in the GPC World Championships from October 16-18 in Regina but a significant injury made him a spectator instead of a competitor.

"I was down in the dumps there when I tore that deltoid," he said. "I was like oh my gosh, you've got a bad hamstring, you can tape up your hamstring but you can't tape up a shoulder. You can't have limited mobility in your shoulder if you want to bench press 330 or 340 pounds."

The 57-year-old was supposed to lift during the competition on October 18 but after a workout just a few days beforehand, he knew he had to pull the plug on competing on October 13.

"I did one heavy workout and I couldn't get anywhere near my national record in the squat," he said. "My record is 345 lbs but I couldn't get over 250 lbs without my hamstring pulling. In the bench press, my record is 326.5 lbs and I couldn't get over 225 lbs. So there was no point, you're just going to further injure yourself and there is always tomorrow."

Cormier qualified for the event in mid-August at a national competition where he claimed four gold medals also held in Regina. During that event, he also suffered a micro tear in his hamstring that's still giving him some issues.

Only two countries ended up competing at the international event this past weekend in Saskatchewan's capital, Canada and New Zealand, so according to Cormier, in hindsight, this wasn't a bad event to miss.

"Even if I had competed there would have been an asterisk beside my name," he said. "World champion but really are you a world champion when it's only two countries competing, I don't think so."

Next up for Cormier will be a weightlifting event in June as his desire within the sport is to win at least one more medal on the international circuit, preferably silver or gold, given he's already won a bronze (1998 in Atlanta).