Former weightlifting champion reminded of past glories during Athlone visit

As an Athlone native living in Dublin, Frank Nestor doesn't get a chance to visit his home town all that often. This makes a coincidence he encountered on one of his recent visits even more remarkable. Frank and his brother Basil came to Athlone last December in order to lay some flowers on their parents' grave prior to Christmas. While he was in town he picked up a copy of that week's Westmeath Independent. Reading our 'Pages from the Past' column, he came across a story from 50 years ago about a 22-year-old man whose parents lived in St Francis Terrace and who had just scooped a major weightlifting title in England. The man in question was Frank. "I was amazed when I saw it. I didn't realise it was 50 years since that happened," he commented. During a recent return visit to Athlone he called to the Westmeath Independent offices and told us a bit more about his life's story. The son of Mary and Edward Nestor, he was christened Slyvester but in subsequent years adopted the name Frank. His family lived at Sarsfield Square, Assumption Road and St Francis Terrace. His parents had fifteen children in total, two of whom died, while none of the remaining 13 are presently living in Athlone. After being educated by the Marist brothers, Frank joined General Textiles Ltd at the age of 14 and was a promising member of Gentex Boxing Club. At the age of 16, he moved to England where he continued to box before being convinced to take up weightlifting. "For a while I wasn't getting anywhere with the weightlifting but then things started to change. I realised that it's all about how you approach it from a psychological point of view," he said. His victory of half a century ago, recorded in this paper, was in the South of Great Britain weight lifting competition and was a achieved with a stunning lift of 750 lbs. He went on to win the competition again the following year and he had a number of other competitive successes before his career was thwarted by back injury problems. However, he continued to train with weights throughout his life. He worked as an electrician and then an engineer, living in numerous parts of England before returning to Ireland. Today he lives in Tallaght with his wife Josie. Frank suffered two strokes in recent times and he said his weight-lifting background helped him recover more quickly than would otherwise have been the case. "My wife and the doctor tells me that if I hadn't done all that weight training recovering from the strokes would have been much slower and much more difficult," he said.