A 10-year-old power lifter: The 'strongest girl in the world'?
Meet Naomi Kutin. She isn't even in sixth grade yet, but the record-breaking, 99-pound Orthodox Jewish girl from New Jersey can lift twice her weight
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The video: Score one for America. "The strongest girl in the world," says Naomi Zeveloff in The Jewish Daily Forward, "is an Orthodox Jewish 10-year-old from Fair Lawn, N.J." That would be Naomi Kutin, 4-foot-9, 99 pounds, about to enter sixth grade, and able to lift more than twice her body weight. (Watch a video below.) In January, when she was two pounds lighter, little Naomi set a world record for females in her weight class — including women decades older — with a 214.9 pound squat; in early July, she notched a regional record for her age group, dead-lifting 209.4 pounds. "It's kind of weird being stronger than an adult," says the understated, matter-of-fact Naomi.
The reaction: Sure, squatting 215 pounds is something many normal men can pull off, but it's incredible for a 10-year-old girl, says Evan Sporer at Sportsgrid. Not too surprisingly, her father, Ed Kutin, is also a record-holding powerlifter, says Doug Barry at Jezebel, a hobby he picked up while studying at MIT. He noticed his daughter's natural super-strength when she started whaling on the boys in karate class. "The Kutins sound suspiciously like the Incredibles, but we'll just keep that our secret, wink wink." Watch Naomi in action:
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