A FIELD engineer finished second in the southern qualifiers for England’s strongwoman national competition.

Gemma Ferguson, 32, of Burgess Hill, led the field for most of the tournament and has now qualified for England’s Strongest Women’s Finals on August 11 in Derby.

She is an openreach field engineer for BT.

Gemma’s family knew from an early age that she had a special strength.

She said: “I’d collect firewood from the wood next to my nan’s house and return with a huge bough.

“She would be astonished at what I could carry.”

She took second place in her first contest – Worthing Strongwoman – in the over 90kg category.

That was before she’d embarked on a proper training programme with the right equipment.

She said: “We don’t have proper strongwoman equipment at my gym in Burgess Hill so I was making do with what we had – like giant garden stones.”

Another second place at Sussex Strongwoman followed and now she’s hooked.

This month she’s taking part in a pre-qualifier in Birmingham for the Arnold Strongwoman event in the US. www.arnoldsportsfestival.com/usa/

Gemma’s always been interested in sport.

But even she was shocked when she started lifting and realised her own strength.

She trains five times a week.

And at weekends her dog, Murphy, joins in.

Together, they compete in Canicross and have taken part in a half marathon.

Since joining Openreach in October, her strength hasn’t gone unnoticed by colleagues. “They joke that if they need help lifting heavy objects, they’d come to me,” says Gemma.

With a lifting personal best of a 100kg Atlas stone and a deadlift of 165kg, that’s no surprise.

“It’s a lot to do with technique and training the muscle groups,” says Gemma. “I’d definitely recommend it to other women. I will be representing my gym Alpha Training in Burgess Hill.”