Malta Weightlifting Association

The MWA has organised its first ranking competition for 2022, and saw numerous records broken and personal records reached. The competition, which was set over two days, was divided so as the cadet, youth and junior athletes competed on Saturday 19th, and the senior athletes competed on Sunday 20th.

Its not secret that the MWA has flourished so incredible youth talent over the past years, and this was evident in the competition on Saturday 19th. The amount of youth participation has now outnumbered the seniors by almost double.

The cadet category was dominated by 11 year-old athletes Julia Grima and Nathan Mifsud. Grima finished the competition with 48kg in the snatch and a massive 60kg in the clean and jerk in the 55kg category. The NSS athlete, Nathan Mifsud, finished with 36kg in the snatch and 50kg in the clean and jerk with a bodyweight of 38kg. 

The show in the youth category competition, which is where the highest level of both athletes and talent is, was stolen by Tenishia Thornton. At 16 years, the now considered veteran athlete in the sport, has new records on the clean and jerk and total in the 59kg category under her belt. After finishing the snatch portion with an equal best at 77kg, she went on to clean and jerk 93kg, 96kg and 98kg successfully. Both her second and third clean and jerks were good enough for national records, and also meant that her 173 and 175kg totals were good enough for new records too. Thornton will have a very busy year ahead of her, with both European and World Youth and Junior world championships (amongst others) are looking to be a very competitive feild for our rising star.

Other honorable mentions in the youth categories came from Kim Camilleri Laga, who has also surpassed her best ever result, when she snatched 45kg in the snatch and finished with 59kg in the clean and jerk in the 45kg category. Aaliyah Gatt also managed a great result in the same bodyweight catgeory where she snatches, 40kg and clean and jerked 55kg. Kaya Curmi Inguanez, 38kg snatch and 54kg clean and jerk.

Rylee Borg, the athlete who has been in the weightlifting scene since he was 5 years old, managed to maintain a great result after his success at the British open last month. He managed to finish this competition with92kg in the snatch and 107kg in the clean and jerk. Good result came from Luke Treebyward with 80kg snatch and 100kg clean and jerk.

Saturday also included several athletes that participate in the SportMalta @onthemove weightlifting program.

On Sunday, the best senior result came from Anton Micallef who competed in the 89kg catgeory. Micallef managed to snatch a new national record of 120kg, a 3 kg improvement on his own snatch best and 1kg over the previous national record in this weight class. He went on to clean and jerk 142kg on his first attempt, but unfortunately failed his 2nd and 3rd attempts. His 262kg total is a whopping 7kg better than his previous best. Matthew Abela also managed personal bests across the board finishing with 90kg in the snatch and 110kg in the clean and jerk in the 81kg category. Other senior honourable mentions are Shaun Cinatar who finished with 214kg total and Rodmar Pulis, the NSS coach, who finished with 224kg total.

At the end of the month, the final list for the Commonwealth Games will be announced and therefore will in turn announce our Maltese contingent for weightlifting at these Games. Furthermore, Mediterranean Games, Senior European Championships, Youth and Junior European and World Championships amongst several others are all competitions selected athletes will be preparing for this year under the watchful eye of national team coach and MWA president Jesmond Caruana. It’s fair to say that, after 2 years of canceled and postponed events due to the COVID pandemic, our weightlifters will have a fruitful year in terms of international participation.