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Hail Australia’s new Olympic Amazon

Behind Eileen Cikamatana’s killer smile and impressive muscles is a humble determination to triumph for her adopted country and family at the Paris Olympics. The dual Commonwealth Games champion and the first woman to win Commonwealth gold for two countries, will compete in the 81kg weightlifting category at her first Olympics.  “Going to Paris will be out of this world,” the 24-year-old Fijian/Australian said. “No one would ever dream how far I have come, especially considering how naughty and tricky I was growing up. Yeah, I still am.  “The Olympics are my dream. So much sweat and tears in the gym. The medals are what we are training for. My hopes are high.” Photo by Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia Cikamatana has literally come a long way since she was a kid growing up in the village of Levuka on the Fijian island of Ovalau, 65km north east across the Pacific from Suva. She started weightlifting at the behest of a teacher who believed that the kid who comfortably carted bags of pig feed on her Dad’s farm could grow up strong enough to lift an adult pig – over her head. Aged just 15 Cikamatana left her “fruit salad family” and simple village life to become a full-time athlete at the Oceania Weightlifting Institute in New Caledonia.  “My Mum Maria is half-Fijian and half-Welsh while Dad Sevanaia (Junior) is half-Fijian and half-Chinese,” she said. “My humble beginnings keep me centered. How I was brought up by my parents has got me to where I am today. They are my Superheroes. Photo by Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia “I saw how they struggled when I was growing up. No matter how hard life was they never gave up on providing us with what we needed. I want to make them proud and to be the reason for their smiles.” Success and smiles came quickly after moving to Noumea, New Caledonia under the guidance of Australian weightlifting royalty Paul and Lilly Coffa – who she calls “the dynamic duo”.  “They saw the potential in me and they have taken me to a higher level,” she said.  Competing for Fiji as an 18-year-old, Cikamatana won gold in the 90kg category at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games. But just one year later Cikamatana was faced with another huge decision. The Fijian Weightlifting Federation brought in a new coach who insisted she relocate from her New Caledonia training base back to Fiji. Eileen Cikamatana says she’s physically and mentally stronger than that “little village girl” who won gold at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games She refused, knowing her future was with Coach Coffa who famously trained the future President of Nauru Marcus Stephen to win Nauru’s first gold medal in any sport at the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games in Canada. Stephen describes Coffa as “the father figure of weightlifting in the Pacific region”, adding “don’t forget, Lilly is everything to us as well.” Before moving to Nauru in 1994 Coffa was Australia’s national coach for 15 years, including at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics where tuna fisherman Dean Lukin won gold and team mate Robert Kabbas won silver.  Paul is also one half of the famous weightlifting Coffa brothers who migrated from Sicily to Australia as teenagers. Paul’s older sibling Sam Coffa, the former Hawthorn Mayor, has been the Australian Weightlifting Federation president since 2018 following his earlier 1983-2007 term, plus he was Commonwealth Games Australia president from 1999-2018.   Photo by Louise Evans Cikamatana’s determined decision to stick with younger brother Paul as her coach triggered another seismic shift in her young life. She farewelled her country of birth and in 2019 became an Australian. Then a year later she relocated again, with Coffa and the Oceania Institute to Melbourne in the middle of the Covid pandemic. Again success followed quickly with Cikamatana winning her second Commonwealth Games gold, this time for Australia in Birmingham in 2022, breaking three Commonwealth Games records in the 87kg class. Cikamatana says she’s now physically and mentally stronger than that “little village girl” who starred in Birmingham. She also boasts improved competition personal bests of 115kg in the snatch and in the clean and jerk she’s lifted 146kg, which is the weight of a piano, a panda or a big adult pig on her dad’s farm. Come Paris she’ll be competing in the 81kg category which she states as her natural body weight.  “My biggest competition in Paris will be myself,” she said. “You can be your own worst enemy so I am focused on being a better athlete and a better competitor every time I am on stage.”  Since she was 15 Eileen Cikamatana has forged her own path, moving countries twice and changing nationalities to become a proud wearer of the green and gold. “I don’t pay attention to other competitors. I look at the weights and the numbers. Then you lift a big weight over your head, the feeling is indescribable. “I love what I do and it loves me back. My sport challenges me to break my barriers every day. ”I’m looking forward to competing for Australia, for my coach and my family and to make everyone smile.” By Louise Evans This article was originally published here: Hail Australia’s new Olympic Amazon - Sportshounds

Don’t be late for the 2024 IWF World Cup!

The last qualification event for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games – the IWF World Cup in Phuket (THA) – is around the corner and all National Member Federations are kindly reminded that they must proceed to the online verification of their Final Entries by this Sunday, March 17, 2024 at 12:00 (noon, CET), exactly two weeks before the start of the event. To complete this procedure, National Federations must enter the IWF E-Entry System (here), click on the "VERIFICATION OF FINAL ENTRIES FOR 2024 IWF WORLD CUP, PHUKET, THA"  tab at the top of the page, and then confirm the athletes taking part in the World Cup or delete the ones that won’t be in Thailand. As it happened in the last IWF events in 2023, and given the importance of the IWF World Cup and the associated TV exposure and visibility of the competition, namely of the A sessions, the IWF intends to ensure that the list of athletes announced after the verification of final entries corresponds to the number of lifters effectively competing in those sessions. This is of paramount importance to minimise the time gap between the time scheduled for TV purposes and the actual duration of each A session. Therefore, National Federations are invited to use the "Weigh-In Only" button (in the right column) for athletes who do not wish to compete but are only weighing-in in Phuket. By clicking on this box for a selected athlete, the Entry Total is automatically reduced to 60 kg. If the athlete still wishes to compete, he/she may continue to do so with the 60 kg Entry Total, but will be placed in the weakest group of his/her bodyweight

Celebrating women in weightlifting: Luisa Peters (COK)

When celebrating the International Women’s Day, the best way to illustrate their importance, namely in the world of weightlifting, is to point out concrete examples. On this special occasion, we look into a tiny country in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, constituted by paradisiac portions of land, the Cook Islands. With less than 20’000 inhabitants, a distinguished citizen and successful lifter has become one of the most respected members of the weightlifting family: Luisa Peters. Born on June 27, 1993 Peters is presently a member of the IWF Athletes Commission – she was elected with her peers during the 2022 IWF World Championships in Bogota (COL) -, but is also part of the IWF Executive Board (EB). After the recent reforms in our International Federation, its Board includes three members of the Athletes Commission, with full voting rights – its Chairman Forrester Osei, the Olympic champion from the Philippines Hidilyn Diaz, and Peters. Overall, the EB has nine women, well above the minimum six stipulated in the IWF Constitution. But Peters’ path began well before she could be at the top of the IWF management. “I was introduced to weightlifting at the age of 14 years old by my grandmother who was a sports enthusiast. She had taken to me the National Weightlifting training centre and I was coached by Sam Pera Snr who was the top weightlifter in the Cook Islands,” she recalls. By that time, in 2007, women’s weightlifting around the world was getting consolidated, after the entry into the Olympic Games in 2000, and the first IWF World Championships in 1987. In the Cook Islands, the situation was not different: “I remember as my grandmother and I pulled up to the training centre, she told me ‘Luisa, I want you to do weightlifting, I want you to show female athletes that no matter the barrier we can achieve our goals’. Weightlifting was not a sport that females did in our country. So, if I had to convince, today, a teenage girl to start weightlifting, I would also say ‘Go for it, weightlifting is for both boys and girls and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it!’” Motivated by another strong woman, her grandmother, Peters soon realised she had talent and potential in the sport. “I attended my first international competition in 2008, the Oceania Championships”. Looking at the IWF records, this debut was modest – in the +75kg category, she lifts 48-60-108, exactly three months before completing her 15th birthday. Things would progress quickly, and in October 2009, she gets her first medal, at the Commonwealth Junior Championships, finishing third in 58-74-132. Fast forward three more years, and we find Peters at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. “I was the first female Olympic weightlifter for the Cook Islands, and I was the only one for quite some time until another female athlete, Phillipa Woonton, joined me in 2015”. In the British capital, she is 11th in the +75kg, lifting 82-100-182. In 2015, she takes part in the IWF World Championships, and despite a solid progression (95-115-210), she is only 29th in her category. In August 2016, she travels to Rio de Janeiro for her second and final Olympic participation - she does again much better (100-124-224), and leaves Brazil in 14th place. Two years later, she concludes her career at the Commonwealth Games, with a 100-125-225 effort (fifth overall), one kg short compared with her personal best of 100-126-226 achieved in 2017 at the Pacific Cup International, an event she won. “The Olympic participations are my best memories in the sport as they are the pinnacle of any athlete’s career”. For more than five years now, she has conciliated her normal job as a police officer, with her duties in the IWF and in the Oceania Weightlifting Federation (as Vice-President, she was the first-ever female board member of the continental body), but also with the presidency of the Cook Islands Weightlifting Federation, for which she was elected at the end of February. Reflecting on her IWF responsibilities, Peters says: “This is really important to me because it means that our small continent of Oceania has a voice within the IWF. Overall, I think the number of women competing and officiating in weightlifting has grown in recent years. When I started, there were very few women involved in weightlifting but fast forward 15 years and most countries have now a full youth, junior, and senior women’s team. Moreover, IWF is doing well in promoting women in sports, just have a look at the number of females we have on the Executive board”. On a more local level, and taking into account the geographical challenges of her tiny nation – the international airport of Rarotonga, in the Cook Islands, connects Auckland, in New Zealand, in about five hours, Honolulu, in Hawaii, in seven hours, and Sydney, in Australia, in eight hours! -, she is well determined to keep weightlifting in good shape. “My plan for the future is to develop Athletes and Officials in weightlifting in the Cook Islands so that our sport can stay alive for when I’m no longer involved”. As a weightlifting role model in Oceania, Peters believes that Sport can be a strong tool to improve gender-balanced representation around the planet. “Sport is really a powerful platform, where all genders can be embraced equally. Sport can help by opening lots of opportunities for all genders so that all can enjoy a high quality of life,” she concludes. By Pedro AdregaIWF Communications Check also an inspiring story on the International Women's Day in the Asian Weightlifting Federation's website:Strength in Diversity: How Women are Reshaping the World of Weightlifting – Asian Weightlifting Federation

The 2024 IWF Development Programme is on!

The IWF is pleased to announce that the 2024 Development Programme was launched and all relevant information has been sent to its Member Federations. In accordance with the related guidelines, national bodies aiming at receiving financial support have to send applications by March 15, 2024. For a maximum of US$ 6,000 per year and per National Federation, these funds may be used for equipment donation, seminars’ organisation, or event support. All requests are evaluated by the IWF Development and Education Commission and a strict monitoring is done to evaluate the implementation of the projects. More details can be found in the application guidelinesPlease find all the documents to be

Malta Weightlifting Association celebrates triumphs at Malta Sports Journalists Association Awards Night

In a dazzling night filled with excitement and celebration, the Malta Weightlifting Association took centre stage, revelling in their success in elevating the status of weightlifting on the island. The highlight of the evening was Tenishia Thornton's remarkable achievement as she clinched the prestigious Sportswoman of the Year award during the 64th edition final night organised by the Malta Sports Journalists Association. The honour was bestowed upon Thornton by Hon. Clifton Grima, the Minister responsible for Education, Sport, Youth, Research, and Innovation, alongside Sandro Micallef, President of the Malta Sports Journalists Association. Thornton's outstanding contributions to the sport were recognised with this coveted title, marking a significant milestone in her career. Kim Camilleri Lagana and Tenishia Thornton Adding to the association's triumphs, Kim Camilleri Lagana secured the Youth Woman Athlete of the Year, following in the footsteps of her teammate Tenishia Thornton, who had previously won this title for three consecutive years. This duo's exceptional performances highlight the depth of talent within the Malta Weightlifting Association. Rylee Borg, nominated for the Youth Man Athlete of the Year, and Jesmond Caruana in the Official of the Year categories, earned well-deserved places in the top five finalists, showcasing the association's all-encompassing impact on the sport. The award ceremony, broadcasted live on local TV, revealed a total of 12 honours, with seven determined by the jury's votes. Among these accolades were the People’s Choice Award, the International Sports Event of the Year, and the newly introduced Sport for Social Change Award, chosen by the Executive Committee of the Malta Sports Journalists Association. Additionally, two awards were presented upon the nomination of Special Olympics Malta, adding a layer of inclusivity and recognising the broader impact of sports on society. Rylee Borg, Kim Lagana, Jesmond Caruana and Tenishia Thornton The Malta Weightlifting Association's success at the awards night underscores their commitment to promoting and developing weightlifting on the island, solidifying their position as a key player in the Maltese sports landscape. As they bask in the glory of their achievements, the association looks forward to continuing its efforts in bringing the weightlifting sport to new heights in Malta. News sent by Malta’s Weightlifting

IWF visits Norway and confirms that the 2025 Worlds are on the right track

The IWF President Mohammed Jalood led the visit of an IWF delegation to Oslo (NOR) to meet the organisers of the 2025 IWF World Championships taking place in Forde. The IWF General Secretary Antonio Urso and the IWF Communications and Marketing Manager Pedro Adrega were also in the Norwegian capital, where the group was welcomed by the President of the national weightlifting federation, Stian Grimseth and his team. During the encounter with the hosts of the 2025 IWF showcase, various aspects related with the organisation of the event were discussed, namely the competition and training venue, the accommodation plan, the anti-doping procedures, the medal ceremonies’ protocols, the TV production of the competition, and the involvement of the local population in the Championships. Stian Grimseth (second from left, President of the NOR Weightlifting Federation), Antonio Urso (in the middle, IWF General Secretary), Sondre Sande Gullord (third from right, Vice-President of the Norwegian Olympic Committee), Mohammed Jalood (second from right, IWF President) Being a small city (15’000 inhabitants) in the western part of Norway, the municipality of Forde, together with the hosts of the event, are planning to have the medal ceremonies outside of the competition venue, in a central place of the town, where every night a festival of light and music will be organised for the citizens of Forde. The engagement of the local schools was also highlighted and the hosts’ intention is to daily fill the 2’000 places available at the Championships’ site. During its visit to Oslo, the IWF delegation had the opportunity to also meet with the Vice-President of the Norwegian Olympic Committee, Mr Sondre Sande Gullord. The IWF President underlined the strong support that our International Federation is bringing to the organisers of the event, and highlighted that the level of professionalism related with the staging of the Championships is remarkable. The national Olympic responsible, in return, confessed that the sport community in his country is looking forward to what will probably be the most attended (in terms of nations) World Championships ever staged in Norway. The competition is expected to attract lifters from 120 countries. The city of Forde “We had a very fruitful visit to Oslo and we confirmed the excellent impression we had about the enthusiasm and motivation of Stian and his team. I strongly believe that the 2025 IWF World Championships will be a great success and a milestone in our history. For the first time ever, a Test Event will be held in October this year (12 months before the actual event), and we will have the opportunity to evaluate the outstanding preparation for the competition,” declared Mr Jalood. “Norway is getting a very strong position in international weightlifting, thanks to some athletes at the top of the world ranking. The IWF World Championships in 2025 will reinforce this winning strategy and will provide one important additional inspiration for the youngest lifters of this nation,” concluded the IWF President. From the organisers’ side, Mr Grimseth was also a happy man at the end of the IWF visit. “We want to test new solutions and implement innovative approaches to weightlifting during the IWF World Championships in 2025. It is very positive to note that the IWF leadership is quite open and receptive to these novelties. Our goal with this competition is to open a new era in our beloved weightlifting, a sport that needs to be closer to its fans. The choice of Forde is ideal for the implementation of that strategy,” said the President of the Norwegian Weightlifting Federation. “We thank the IWF for the trust and support and we promise that the weightlifting family will live an unforgettable experience in 2025!” Mr Grimseth concluded.   IWF