Papua New Guinea’s Loa Dika Toua made history as the first female to compete in five Olympic weightlifting competitions on Saturday, just a few hours after carrying her nation’s flag at the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony.<\/p>\n
It was a remarkable achievement by the 37-year-old, coming 21 years after she became the first female ever to lift at an Olympic Games, when women’s weightlifting was first introduced at Sydney 2000. <\/p>\n
The 12-time continental champion and mother of two, a national hero back in her home country, beamed a huge smile as she successfully hoisted 69kg in her first snatch attempt before forming a heart shape with her hands.<\/p>\n
“It’s an amazing feeling,” she told AFP after finishing fourth in Group B of the 49kg bodyweight division, with a total of 167kg.<\/p>\n
“Your dream is to go to one Olympics, and maybe a second one. But I never imagined in a million years that I would make it to five.”<\/p>\n
Toua considered quitting the sport after she was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 2013 and almost died, but made an astonishing recovery to win Commonwealth Games gold at Glasgow 2014.<\/p>\n
This might have been her sixth Olympic Games but she skipped Rio 2016 to spend more time with her children and give her sister Thelma a chance to lift at the Olympics, a dream that was dashed when Papua New Guinea did not send a team. <\/p>\n
She said she hadn’t ruled out attempting to qualify for a sixth Games, with the Paris Olympics just three years away when she will be 40.<\/p>\n
“Well I was in the back room and all my weightlifting friends were like ‘Dika we’ll see you in 2024 in Paris,” she said.<\/p>\n
“But I was like: ‘I’m not getting any younger’!”<\/p>\n
“But I will take it one step at a time. I’m really looking forward to the Commonwealth Games next year in Birmingham, and hopefully this Covid situation goes away.”<\/p>\n
Toua was at the Tokyo International Forum venue to weigh in at 7:50 am, despite proudly leading her country’s delegation at the Opening Ceremony which did not finish until almost midnight on Friday.<\/p>\n
“There was a lot of walking,” she said. “At one point I said to my coach, who is my husband, you know I need to sit down somewhere and rest my legs for tomorrow.<\/p>\n
“But it just kept going and I’m not complaining, but I only had five hours of sleep.”<\/p>\n
Three male weightlifters have competed at five Olympic Games — Imre Foldi of Hungary, and Germany’s Ingo Steinhofel and Ronny Weller — but no woman had done it until now.<\/p>\n
The medals in the 49kg division will be decided later Saturday when the Group A athletes compete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Papua New Guinea’s Loa Dika Toua made history as the first female to compete in five Olympic weightlifting competitions on Saturday, just a few hours after carrying her nation’s flag at the Tokyo 2020 opening ceremony. It was a remarkable achievement by the 37-year-old, coming 21 years after she became the first female ever to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\n