Eight colleges will be competing against each other today in the Weightlifting and Boxing Interschool Championship at Gym 3 at Tuanaimato.

President of Samoa Weightlifting, Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, said they are ready for the one-day tournament.

“After hard training with each college we are finally here to witness the students put in to action what they were trained for,” he said.

The tournament will be opened by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi or the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, Loau Keneti Sio.

“We are working together with the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture in arranging everything in organizing the competition setup.”

The competition is an initiative from the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, Loau Keneti Sio, to help with the development of weightlifting, as well as the boxing.

“We are looking at approximately 200 lifters and I’m sure it’s the same as the boxing,” he said.

“This will be the first time in history this number of students will be competing for a tournament within one day.

“Boxing will be more because there are a lot of students who want to be boxers and so it will be a big day today.

“We are running the whole tournament, even with boxing as well, so everything has to adhere to the rules of both sports.

“This is history in the making and by saying that, we will be setting records for female and male lifters, so whoever will set a record, their name will be on the board.

“We also have three of our elites that will be competing today, one male and two females, one from Chanel College and the others from Avele College.

“There will be medals for each division, in gold, silver and bronze.

“There will be trophies for both male and female for the best school, from first place to third place, and then there will be a trophy for the overall female and male lifter.”

Minister of Sports, Loau, said he is looking forward to the competition today.

“These two associations decided to come on board and help the young people of Samoa in developing their talents,” said Laou.

“What happened before was there was no unity and each official and association had gone to do their own thing, to benefit their schools and their own children.

“Looking at the development of sports now, I can say that they are improving a lot and that is what we wanted, hence why I have come up with this initiative so that we can get the young ones ready.

“This is good for the young people and who knows, maybe next year we will be entering other sports to come and join us in this annual competition.”