AURORA “RORY” VAN ULFT MAKES WORLD-RECORD INTERNATIONAL DEBUT IN CALI

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Aurora “Rory” van Ulft, the 13-year-old Aruban weightlifter who has spent years lighting up social media with viral training clips, turned that hype into official history this weekend at the 2026 IWF World Youth Championships in Cali, Colombia.

Competing in the women’s 44kg category on the opening day of the championships, Sunday, July 5, van Ulft won gold with a total of 162kg — 69kg in the snatch and a massive 93kg in the clean & jerk. That clean & jerk didn’t just win the category; it obliterated the existing world youth record in the class, which stood at 76kg. Her total gave her a winning margin of 19kg over the silver medalist, Turkey’s Asel Şenel.

“It was a successful day for me. I got the clean and jerk and total record with 93kg, so I’m really happy about that,” she said.

It marks van Ulft’s first appearance on the international competitive stage. Born in Ottawa and representing Aruba through her father’s Dutch heritage, she had spent years building an enormous following — well over 400,000 Instagram followers — through home videos of eye-popping lifts: deadlifts and squats exceeding senior world records, and a clean & jerk unofficially topping the youth world mark at just 11 years old. Sunday was the first time any of that translated into a sanctioned IWF result.

“It feels amazing to get a new record. I’m just really happy with how it went,” van Ulft said. “Honestly, I’m feeling pretty great.”

Notably, going into the competition van Ulft had told IWF media she was hoping to hit around 73-93-162, and she landed almost exactly on target, missing only the snatch number while still smashing her clean & jerk goal.

“I did miss the snatch record, so that’s still out there for me to go get next time,” she said.

The moment carried extra weight for the tiny island nation she now represents. “I’m glad people are noticing Aruba too — not just me,” van Ulft said. “It means a lot that Aruba is getting some recognition from this.”

That sentiment was echoed at the highest levels of Aruban sport. Nicole Hoevertsz, Aruba’s IOC member and Secretary General of the Aruba Olympic Committee, was on hand to present van Ulft’s medal.

“As a representative of the Olympic Committee, I was obviously very pleased to be there at the time of seeing the triumph of our athlete Aurora who managed to win in her first competition at this level and to break the World Youth Record in her weight category,” Hoevertsz said. “It was a great moment for us, and to be there as Secretary General of the Olympic Committee, I was very pleased to give her her medals corresponding to this great victory. The fact that at a young age, at the age of 13, she is already participating in this category of 44 kg, was really a great moment.”

Her coach, Spencer Moorman — a former US national champion — has worked with her since she was young, and her parents, Cavan van Ulft and Lindsay Noad, made the roughly 4,500km trip from Ottawa to watch.

Van Ulft isn’t slowing down. Next up is the U-15 Pan American Championships in Ecuador at the end of August. “I want to keep going and keep having successful competitions,” she said. “At the end of August I’m going to the Pan Am Games in Ecuador, so I’ll be getting ready for that.”

Beyond that, her focus is squarely on Los Angeles. “I’d love to compete at the 2028 Olympics,” she said — the year she’ll turn 15 and become age-eligible for senior international competition.