The Weightlifting European Small Nation Championships & the Cyprus Junior International Open were successfully organised in Limassol.
Best result came from Tenishia Thornton winning the best individual female title with 255 points, Iceland in 2nd with 229 points and Roberta Tabone finishing in 3rd with 226 points. The combination of their scores also landed them the best female team title overall followed by Iceland and Cyprus.
The combined points of Tenishia Thornton, Roberta Tabone, Anton Micallef, Shaun Ciantar and Rylee Borg placed the mixed team in third place overall, only 1 point behind 2nd place finishers from Iceland, and 4 points behind first-place finishers from Cyprus. Men team placed in 3rd place. Monaco placed 4th followed by San Marino and Luxembourg.
17-year-old Tenishia Thornton has had a stellar year and does not seem to be slowing down in the slightest. She managed to place 1st place in the Junior International, followed by Iceland and Cyprus. A personal best and national record snatch of 83kg in the 59kg category, and paired that up with a 101kg clean and jerk. Her 184kg total was also a new national record for the youth athlete, who is currently gearing up for the IWF World Weightlifting Championships set to take place in Colombia in December.
Roberta Tabone, who has most recently competed at the Commonwealth Games with great success, managed an 83kg snatch and 105kg clean and jerk in the 71kg category. 16-year-old Rylee Borg has also had great improvements this year and continued that success with a 99kg snatch and 125kg clean and jerk in the 73kg category.
Anton Micallef, who competed in the 81kg category, finished his snatch portion with 116kg only 1kg away from his best-ever snatch in this category. He also went on to finish his clean and jerks with a successful lift at 135kg. Shaun Ciantar competed in the 89kg category and managed a snatch of 111kg and a clean and jerk of 133kg.
The Maltese mixed team total points of 1832 and finished just behind the team from Iceland who finished with 1833 points. The winner of the championships, Cyprus, finished with a grand total of 1836 points.
The Maltese contingent was accompanied by national team coaches Jesmond Caruana and Rodmar Pulis.