Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/872981
21 Sport WEIGHTLIFTING maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2017 Positive results from Maltese weightlifters in Gold Coast THE Weightlifting Com- monwealth Championships were underway this past week in Gold Coast, Australia. 3 Maltese lifters were at the meet, which was of outmost importance given that it was the last opportunity our sen- ior lifters had to get a good qualifying position for the Commonwealth Games set to take place in the same place in Australia next April. The hopes for the Common- wealth Games are still alive for Kieran Mifsud (-105kg), who had an exceptional per- formance last Friday. He started the competition with a successful snatch of 126kg and 130kg, only narrowly missing his last attempt at 132kg. The clean and jerks proved to be his stronger lift for the night, managing to get all three of his attempts at 160kg, 166kg and 170kg. Given the importance of this event for the Commonwealth rankings, the competition was very strong with the ten- sion being very high for most of the countries to secure their places. Mifsud not only managed to get a decent po- sition on the rankings, but at this meet he placed 4th from the junior lifters in the 105kg category. Addition- ally, Mifsud broke 16 national records and topping up the previous total by 20kg. The records were broken in both the Junior and Senior 105kg category. Jessica Edge (-53kg) took the platform on the first day of competition. Edge had a very successful meet, lifting 57kg snatch and 71kg clean and jerk for a total of 128kg domi- nating the B group by 9kg. Kyle Micallef (-85kg) fin- ished with a total of 273 kg. Unfortunately, it wasn't Mi- callef 's best competition, managing only his starting lifts of 121kg in snatch and 152kg in clean and jerk, leav- ing a lot of kilos behind on the platform. However, even so, Micallef managed to break 2 national records in this body- weight category. The athletes together with Jesmond Caruana left the is- land on the 24th August for an eight week training camp in Brisbane prior to these championships. The Cougars weightlifting club hosted the athletes while they were there with support from the IWF. This meet was made possible with the continue help of the MOC and Sport Malta. All the three athletes to- gether with Yazmin Zammit Stevens will have to wait un- til the end of October for all qualifying competitions are concluded for the final con- firmation for the CWG2018. Being a junior, Kieran Mifsud has another opportunity to strengthen his result in the Junior Europeans in mid Oc- tober.