Jamaican trio shines at Pan Am weightlifting competition
Omarie mears, James Daley and Sientje henderson created history last week when they represented Jamaica at the Pan American Games in weightlifting in the Dominican Republic.
The games were to have been held last year, but got postponed due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
It was the first time that Jamaica was competing in a weightlifting competition internationally in the last 20 years.
Mears was the first of the trio to compete, doing so last Wednesday in the Snatch and Clean and Jerk. In the Snatch he got 100, 105, 110, while in the Clean and Jerk he got 125, 130, 137 (missed) for a total of 240. Mears placed 10th out of 12 in the 89kg category.
“It’s been 20 years since Jamaica has had any lifters on the international stage for weightlifting. We are now building a base for all fulltime athletes and this is a start. Out of many we are one,” he said.
Daley competed after Mears in the 96kg category lifting 105, 111, 116 in the Snatch130, 135, 140 in the Clean and Jerk for a total of 256. He too paced 10th in his category.
Daley was competing in his first international competition and his first for Jamaica and was delighted to get all his lifts.
“History was made and we have built a great foundation for the future of Jamaica weightlifting,” Daley said after competing in the green, gold and black for the very first time.
Sientje Henderson became the first female to compete in weightlifting for Jamaica when she participated
The Central American and Caribbean Amateur Swimming Confederation (CCCAN) has announced Puerto Rico as the new host for the 2021 staging of the prestigious event.
The event was slated to be hosted by Panama, but that country declared from last year that due to their COVID-19 situation they will not be able to host the event.
The new venue is the San Juan Aquatic Complex, and the meet will be held June 23-27. The San Juan Aquatic Complex features a 50m Olympic-sized pool and a separate diving well.
The pool also features a movable floor which makes it possible to vary the water depth from 3m deep to zero. The state-of-the-art facility on Thursday.
Competing in the 87kg category, Henderson lifted 68, 71, 74 in the Snatch and 90, 97x, 97x in the Clean and Jerk for a total of 164 which placed 11th overall.
“This experience has been nothing short of incredible. I am so honoured to have made history as the first ever woman to lift for Jamaica and I am certainly looking forward to creating a base for all female athletes in Jamaica,” said a delighted Henderson.
Mark Broomfield, President of the Jamaica Weightlifting Federation, said that participating at the championship was an important milestone for the federation.
“Our experience from the Pan American Weightlifting Championships serves a number of purposes and helped us to achieve a number of objectives,” he said.
“Firstly, it got us back on the international stage which is a requirement by the Pan American Weightlifting Federation as well as the International Weightlifting Federation. In order to be a member of those organizations you must participate in their events so we ensured that we secured our membership,” he continued.
“Secondly, we were able to get our athletes exposed in international competition to see where we are and where we need to get to and we were able to network,” Broomfield concluded.
There are at least three championships set to be staged later this year for which Jamaica are eligible including, the Commonwealth Championships in Singapore in October, the World Championships in Peru in November and the Pan Am Championships in Ecuador, also in November,
The ASAJ was given the green light to resume competition earlier this week and the news about CCCAN should provide impetus for local swimmers to get back into competitive action after a very long layoff.
After a second place finish at Carifta in 2019, Jamaica will be looking for a strong showing at CCCAN should they take part in the championships. A big challenge which will face the ASAJ is that the cohort of 15-17 age group athletes will be in final preparation mode for sitting the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) during the staging of this event.