Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1180732
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 30 OCTOBER 2019 21 SPORTS WEIGHTLIFTING MALTESE weightlifting has been having an incredible year, and the youth team's success the past weekend adds another two Gold inter- national medals to their list of achievements. The Youth National team, composed of 14-year-old Tenishia Thornton, 11-year- old Kim Camilleri Lagana and 16-year-old Tristan Zammit competed at the Challenge 210 Tournament in Tramel- an, Switzerland. These championships saw some of the most success- ful athletes, youth and sen- ior, compete as it was also an Olympic Qualification event. Camilleri Lagana, Malta's youngest national team ath- lete at 11 years old, was the first on the platform. Despite this being her first international appearance, she managed to finish on top in the U13 age group with her perfect 6/6 performance. With a body weight of 28kg, she ended the meet with 27kg in the Snatch and 35kg in the clean and jerk breaking all her previous U13 records in the 32kg category. Athletes from Switzerland and Germany placed in second and third place. Tenishia Thornton started off with a less than expected 52kg snatch but turned the competition around with a whopping 67kg in the clean and jerk portion of the com- petition. With a body weight of 46kg she set three national records in the 49kg category, and won another international Gold medal to add to her collec- tion. Athletes from Hungary and Switzerland placed in seocond and third place. Thornton has managed to become Malta's most deco- rated youth athlete in the sport's history and is showing no signs of slowing down. She is now preparing for the Eu- ropean Youth Championships in Israel next December. This was also the first inter- national competition for Zam- mit who finished this compe- tition with a 102kg snatch, 123kg clean and jerk and three new national records in the U17 102+kg category. De- spite being introduced to the sport a few years ago, Zammit only started training regularly recently and has been show- ing steady improvement with every competition. The team was accompanied by National team coach Jes- mond Caruana, who was also selected to be a technical offi- cial in the Olympic Qualifica- tion part of the event. Two gold medals for Malta youth weightlifting team in Switzerland Jesmond Caruana with Kim Camilleri Lagana, Tenishia Thornton and Tristan Zammit