"I think what I took most from last year's Games was seeing that there is no room for weaknesses."
Azadeh Boroumand’s wide smile and humble demeanor seem contradictory to the image of the aggressively focused and powerful woman who recently smashed through the competition at the 2012 South Central Regional.
Make no mistake, though, because this unique ability to balance humility and a willingness to fight is 100 percent genuine, and it’s exactly what propelled Boroumand to five out of six 1st place finishes in one weekend.
With winning the Regional behind her, Boroumand explained the excitement she has going into her first trip to the Games. “It’s my first time to the Games and it still feels crazy saying it out loud. I don’t think it’s hit me yet,” she says. “To be honest I was just as surprised as everyone else that I did as well as I did in the events that weekend. I really had no idea that the success I had over the weekend was going to happen. It was a nice little surprise for me.”
While Boroumand nearly qualified for the Games in 2011, she believes her stark improvement this year came from focusing in on her weaknesses and preparing to work against the best. “I think what I took in most from last year’s Games was seeing that there is no room for weaknesses,” she explains. “You don’t have to be the best at everything, but when it’s your time to shine, dominate and rock those workouts. At the same time … I’m a big girl, so when there’s things that big girls aren’t supposed to be good at, you still have to be able to hang in the top five. That type of consistency and working to be at least good at everything is what you have to do. As soon as I finished Regionals last year, I started tackling my weaknesses and I’m talking high volume. Every time I was done after a workout I would do the movements I knew I was weakest at and I would do them in high reps, so that I could work to get better at them, even when I was tired."
After Event 1, it was obvious her work had paid off as Boroumand finished only 11 seconds behind 5’0” tall Ady Shea, despite being 5’10” herself. The deadlift and handstand push-up duo known as Diane would be Boroumand’s only 2nd place finish throughout the weekend.
Now that she’s established herself as one to watch, Boroumand still feels she has work to do as she prepares for Carson, Calif.
“Going into the Games, I’m working on getting faster and being able to move weight as fast as someone who is half the size of me, but has the same amount of strength,” she says. “Other than that though, I’m just going to keep my task and my goal in mind.”
