Overview

The Australian Olympic Weightlifting Team for Paris consists of three 24-year-old debutants, including one-time Wallaby hopeful Kyle Bruce, who’ll compete in the men’s 89 kilo category, and Jacqueline Nichele - women’s 71 kilo class - who measured up for her prized Australian blazer a mere five years after taking up the sport.

While Kyle and Jacqueline will give their all, the nation’s most obvious hopes for a medal rest on the strong shoulders of Fijian-born Eileen Cikamatana. Eileen created history in 2022 as the first woman in Commonwealth Games history to win gold for two different countries (Fiji 2018, Australia 2022).

Adding extra starch to her credentials Eileen won a silver and bronze medal at the World Championships; two golds and a silver at the Oceania Championships; Commonwealth Games silver, gold at the Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games, a silver at the World Junior Championships and a bronze medal at the World Youth Championships.

Coach Paul Coffa, who has been involved in weightlifting for 60 years, says one trait that puts Eileen on par with the great Dean Lukin is her attitude. “She wants to win at all costs,” says the man who has guided over 100 medallists at weightlifting’s major competitions.

Kyle, who was selected for a junior Waratahs merit team before taking up weightlifting at 16, secured his ticket (as did Jacqueline) to France by finishing a gruelling qualification round as the highest ranked Oceania athlete.
He came to prominence in the 2022 Commonwealth Games after being denied the gold medal, and being presented silver, when a review of his lift identified a buckle in his left elbow. While devastated by the ruling, Kyle says he will put the lessons from the experience into action when he competes at the South Paris Arena 6 on 9 August.

Jacqueline, who proved her resilience in the qualifying round, will compete in the women’s 71 kilo event on the same evening. She wants her Olympic journey to inspire girls to embrace sports such as weightlifting without the fear of getting ‘too big’ or not feeling feminine enough. She also questions why people worry about female lifters who (as she does) wear makeup to training.

Ones to Watch 

Australia

Eileen’s story is fodder for a movie. An 11-year-old girl growing up on a farm in tropical Fiji carts 50 kilo bags of animal feed from her dad’s truck and lugs them to storage as if they were pillows made of feathers. She’s then encouraged by a school teacher to take up weightlifting. She teams up with a legendary coach from Australia,  who'd relocated to the South Pacific with a plan to turn the territory into a weightlifting powerhouse, and, through the combination of her incredible strength and iron-willed determination, she conquers the world by heaving heavy metal.

International

Keep an eye on Bulgaria’s 20 year old Karlos Nasar in Aussie Kyle Bruce’s men’s 89-kilo class. He arrives in Paris having set six world records – his first as a 17-year-old - and is widely tipped to win the gold medal.
Another youngster, 19 year old Yekta Jamali Galeh, who’ll oppose Jacqueline Nichele in the women’s 71 kilo category should capture attention when she competes for the IOC Refugee Team. Yekta fled Iran and sought asylum in Germany two years ago because she faced discrimination for being a female in the sport.
Strong man Lasha Talakhadze from Georgia – undisputedly the strongest male weightlifter in history – attempts to win his third gold Olympic gold medal in what is likely to be his farewell to arms. When he successfully completed a 320 kilogram back squat in June he employed two spotters. They weren’t there to assist him in getting the weight up, their job was to ensure the huge number plates remained on the sleeve of his barbell!

Sport Format 

Weightlifting was staged at the inaugural modern Olympic Games in Greece in 1896. The men’s competition has been part of every Olympics since 1920, while women made their debut at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

The Weightlifting program runs in Paris from 7-11 August and will be held at the South Paris Arena 6,  at the Paris Expo centre. However, the number of weightlifting events has been reduced from 14 in Tokyo to 10.
That means with 120 athletes – there were 196 weightlifters at Tokyo -  it has one of the smallest presences of any sport this Olympic cycle.

There’ll be 10 medals on offer for the five men and five women weight classes.

The men’s classes are:

• 61 kilos
• 73 kilos
• 89 kilos
• 102 kilos
• +102 kilos

The women’s:

• 49 kilos
• 59 kilos
• 71 kilos
• 81 kilos
• +81 kilos

Olympic weightlifters perform two different lifts: snatch, and clean and jerk.

The snatch is where the barbell is lifted above the competitor’s head in one movement. Clean and jerk is where the barbell is lifted above the head in two movements.

Competitors are permitted three attempts at each lift, and their best result in each lift is added together to form their final score. If a lift is deemed successful, the lifters can progress to a heavier weight.

A panel of three referees judge each lift. A white light is displayed if a lift is successful, and the weightlifters require a minimum of two lights to progress. Each weightlifting event at Paris is being run as a final.

Competition Schedule*

Friday 9 August :

Men’s 89 kilos 3pm Paris/11pm AEST

Women’s 71 kilos 7.30pm Paris/ 3.30am (Saturday) AEST

Saturday 10 August:

Women’s 81 kilos 4pm Paris/12am (Saturday) AEST

*For Australian competitors