HEY BRO, HOW MUCH DO YOU WEIGH?

DAMON Kelly (right) will need to lift twice the body weight of Brisbane Lions midfielder Rhys Mathieson above his head to have a shot at a Commonwealth Games gold medal. It’s a prospect Kelly will now face after the Logan weightlifter was granted his shot

DAMON Kelly will need to lift twice the body weight of Brisbane Lions midfielder Rhys Mathieson above his head to have a shot at a Commonwealth Games gold medal.

The magnitude of the tin being lifted in the gym by top weightlifters like Kelly is always hard to relate to when quoted in bare numbers.

His best snatch mark of 176kg is exactly twice the weight of 88kg midfielder Mathieson, who picked up a few tips on technique when Kelly joined him in the Lions gym yesterday.

Kelly will also have to get close to his best clean-and-jerk effort (222kg) if he is to post a 390kg-plus total that is good enough to pressure young Samoan favourite Lauititi Lui.

Kelly, 34, will heave the equivalent of a small car over the course of every training session to be at his peak when the Commonwealth’s top lifters converge on the Gold Coast in April.

The rare chance to compete in his home state has pushed him to his fourth Commonwealth Games team with dreams of repeating the gold he won in 2010 in New Delhi.

“I definitely have my work cut out against three young lifters from Samoa, New Zealand and Pakistan but that’s where experience comes in,” Kelly said.

“Lots of crazy things happen in weightlifting and everything I do over the next 10 weeks will be aimed at getting it right on the day.”

At a tick over 150kg, the Brisbane father-of-three will have the biggest frame of any Aussie athlete at the Games.

Kelly and 2006 gold medallist Deborah Acason, named on her fifth Commonwealth Games team, headlined the 16strong Australian weightlifting team named yesterday.

Tickets remain available for seven weightlifting sessions at the Carrara Sports Centre.