Meet Claudine Shoval, Israel’s ‘Iron Lady’ who started bodybuilding at 50

By the time people turn 50, they start planning their retirement. But this was not the case with Israel’s Claudine Shoval. For her, the life was just starting. After being in an abusive marriage for 24 years, Shoval decided to banish all her fears and redefine her life. She ended her marriage and took up a challenge that most people find hard even in their early 20s – bodybuilding.

I mean seriously! Bodybuilding at the age of 50!! Hard to believe but it true. Shoval not just started intense bodybuilding after ending her marriage at the age of 50 but went on to become a champion in the field and remained that for 10 years . Hailed as Israel’s “Iron Lady”, Claudine Shoval shocked everyone when she pulled a big truck.

Recalling her life before body building, Shoval, who is now 62-year-old, told BCC REEL: “The violence was aimed at me. My marriage last 24 years. It was humiliating…. raising a hand…. Or if you don’t do as I tell you, I will kill you. He (Shoval’s husband) was just looking all the times for ways to crush me. Nothing was ever enough for him.”

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However, this has to end one day. If not with her fighting for herself, with her death. But she didn’t waited and showed the world that a woman, if she has decided, can do anything and Shoval is a living example of it.

“I showed the world that I can pick myself up. And anyone who wants to, can do the same. You must sink low,” Shoval said.

The mother of 4, Shoval thinks that she was a different mother back then and her children are now proud of her. “There is a huge different between the mother I was then and the mother I am today. They (her children) are proud of me. This was the most important thing for me to show them that if you want, you can do it,” she added.