Three Bronze medals for Yasmin Zammit Stevens

The annual Weightlifting Mediterranean Cup was organised in conjunction with the San Marino Open this year as a silver Olympic Qualification event this past weekend in San Marino. Despite this meet always being very strong in terms of athlete appearance and level, this year it was as challenging as ever with the Tokyo Olympics only months away.

Malta was represented by three athletes at the event; Brian Muscat, Roberta Tabone and Malta's Olympic hopeful, Yasmin Zammit Stevens. Only 2 weeks after her stellar result at the IWF World Championships, Zammit Stevens managed to snatch 3 bronze medals in the 71kg category at this meet for her 85kg snatch, 102kg clean and jerk and 187kg total. She finished in third place behind American lifter, Kaitlynn Cooper, who finished with 92kg, 115kg and 207kg in the snatch, clean and jerk and total respectively. Italy's Gulia Miserandino finished in second with her lifts at 93kg, 104kg and 197kg. This qualification event will be the last one for this 2nd period of qualifications for Zammit Stevens. The third and last period will be between November this year and April next year. This will be the last stretch of effort towards the Olympic Games.

Roberta Tabone, also has an incredible showing with PR lifts in both the snatch portion and the total. Tabone, who also competed in the 71kg category, finished in 4th place in the snatch with her effort at 76kg, 5th place in the clean and jerk with 94kg and 4th overall with 170kg. She managed to surpass athletes from Croatia, San Marino and also the Netherlands.

As for Brian Muscat, this was his first international representation for the national team. He competed in the 89kg category and ended his competition with a 113kg snatch, 145kg clean and jerk and 258kg total.

The team was accompanied by national team coach Jesmond Caruana, who also doubled as head of Jury for technical officials at this Olympic qualification event.

The MWA also credit the Malta Olympic Committee and SportMalta for their ongoing help, as none of this success would be possible without their support.