Michael “didn’t know what powerlifting was”. Now he deadlifts a quarter ton
Three lifts. Three attempts per lift, each one getting heavier than the last. Those are the high-pressure rules of powerlifting, where athletes who’ve trained for months—or even years—get one shot to prove how strong they’ve built themselves up to be. For Ontario powerlifter Michael Bandler, it’s not his first rodeo, given that he previously represented his country at the Special Olympics World Games Abu Dhabi 2019. However, he wasn’t always the veteran strongman his Toronto team now knows him to be.
“I first started playing basketball [in Special Olympics],” Michael recalled, “so my mom was looking for other sports to do. We found powerlifting and didn’t know what it was. Now I’m where I am today.”
After years of training on his Special Olympics Toronto powerlifting team—Downtown Muscle—and outside Special Olympics with a personal trainer, Michael’s beaten personal records he set during the 2019 games in Abu Dhabi. As important as those training sessions are, Michael frequently tells his fellow athletes that their mindset during the lift is just as crucial.
“If you worry about what’s on the bar,” Michael says, “you’re going to psyche yourself out. You’ll be thinking more about the weight than being positive about lifting that weight.”
A leader on his team, Michael said he likes giving advice to his fellow athletes to they can become stronger and experience the same adventure he did going to national and then world games. Implicitly, it’s also his way of paying forward the same help he received from other athletes during his trip to Abu Dhabi, which was his first time going to an international competition.
“I had a mentor,” Michael recalled, “his name is Andre Goulet. That’s how I was able to become a mentor for upcoming new athletes. [The Special Olympics World Games] was a whole different world, it’s a whole different experience compared to you’re usually from.”
Andre—from Timmins ON—and another athlete from Sudbury named Josee took Michael under their wing, while the three were part of a larger Special Olympics Canada team representing themselves in powerlifting. Since then, Michael has taken such pride in Special Olympics that some of his tattoos commemorate the movement, such as disability pride ribbons and the dates of some of his big competitions.
“You may have to work harder than others,” Michael added, “but it feels great. You build that community around you.”
He takes the confidence he learned through Special Olympics into his day job, as a server at an autism-friendly and wheelchair-accessible restaurant called Sarang Kitchen.
“It’s a Korean fried chicken restaurant,” he explained, “it doesn’t matter where you’re from, [Sarang] is all-inclusive to all different kinds of people.”
Making new friends on the Special Olympics Ontario powerlifting team, Michael made a point of thanking all the volunteer coaches who helped make his journey possible.
“I’d like to say ‘thank you’ to all the coaches back home on Downtown Muscle, Michael Douglas, Chris Ball, Eric Ward. And the national coaches—Danny, Matt, and Candace—for believing in me!”