3 gold medals for Tulo
Tulo lifted a total of 109kg in the snatch and managed to lift 129kg in the clean & jerk with overall of 238kg.
Manueli Tulo won three gold medals in the 56kg for Team Fiji’ during the Pacific Miini Games weightlifting competition at Epauto Hall, Port Vila, Vanuatu, yesterday.
Tulo lifted a total of 109kg in the snatch and managed to lift 129kg in the clean & jerk with overall of 238kg.
In the men’s 62kg, Poama Qaqa of Fiji won three silver medals. Qaqa lifted 110kg in the snatch and lifted 127kg in the clean & jerk with a total of 237. Weightlifting section manager Ritesh Ratiram said Tulo’s performance and that of their athletes set a benchmark for themselves.
“He was focused on winning gold heading into this competition and he has delivered on that and we are proud of him,” Ratiram said.
“This is the first gold medals for Fiji in this year’s Pacific Mini Games and this is a result of months of hard work so it is good to see that it is paying off.”
He said the Games was a good platform for them to gauge where they were and how they would be progressing heading preparing for the Commonwealth Games, in Australia, next year.
Lifters Reconnect
Members of the Team Fiji weightlifters uses Pacific Mini Games to not only compete but to reconnect with their ancestral ties to Vanuatu.
Coach Jo Vueti said nine of their 11 lifters have ancestral roots in Vanuatu. “Majority of our lifters are from Baba and have ancestral ties here in Vanuatu, whose ancestors were brought over during the “blackbirding” period,” Vueti said.
He said it was a motivating factor for them, given the amount of support they had been receiving from their relatives in Vanuatu.
They won six medals in the women’s division, three bronze in the 53kg category through Arieta Mudunavoce who lifted 56kg in the snatch and 70kg in the clean and jerk events, lifting a total of 126kg. Seruwaia Malani won three silvers with a total lift of 115kg, lifting 50kg snatch and 65kg clean and jerk