Six Samoan weightlifters have set their eyes on the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham, England late next month with their coach confident in their ability to bring home medals. 

The athletes who will represent Samoa in weightlifting are looking to bring home gold from the games in England and potentially even dominate their individual categories to make up for their absence at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

The athletes have qualified on their own merit: Nevo Ioane (67 kg), John Tafi (73 kg), Don Opeloge (96 kg), Jack Opeloge (109 kg), Petelo Lautusi (109 kg) together with Feagaiga Stowers (87 kg) who is representing Samoa in the women’s category.

They have been preparing for two years since the COVID-19 pandemic and are looking forward to the games next month.  

Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, the President of the Samoa Weightlifting Federation and head coach, said the weightlifters' goal is to get gold and his confident in the team's ability to all win medals.

“The aim is for Gold medal, that is the number one aim but I think that they can all win medals," Tuaopepe said. “This is probably the strongest team that Samoa has ever had in all sports."

Weightlifting is the only sport for Samoa that has won gold at the Commonwealth Games level, starting in 2010 where they won three gold and 2018 two gold medals were won. The team is looking to better that record this year in preparation for the next Olympic Games in 2024.

Samoa also has two athletes who will participate in wrestling at the Commonwealth Games. The two-men team is led by Willie Alofipo (97 kg) and Taitaifono Tamati (86 kg) who are training under coach Gaku Akazawa who has been training for the event.

Akazawa said their preparations began two years ago and is of the view that they are both ready to compete at the Commonwealth Games.

Alofipo said their preparations started two years ago during the pandemic, they were not sure when they initially started training in 2020 but stuck to their guns nevertheless. 

"We weren’t sure if we were going to have this competition but we stuck to the training and here we are two years later going to the Commonwealth Games," he said. 

Tuaopepe, who is also the President of the Samoa Wrestling Association, said they are looking forward to the 2022 Commonwealth Games after the challenges they faced along the way.

“It’s been a long road and we want to thank people who’ve helped us especially SASNOC, the Government of Samoa, our sponsors Pacific Pure Water and a few others who have supported use," he said. 

"We are looking forward to the games and I think Samoa has a good team, we have prepared for a long time and we’re looking for some good results”.