Malta weightlifting history has been made as one of the rising stars in weightlifting has been named this years Youth Sportswoman Of the a year. 15 year old Tenishia Thornton is the first ever weightlifter to win this title. She was nominated for the same category last year but missed out on the award by a few points after finishing in 2nd place. Even with several postponed and cancelled events, Thornton hasn’t let the ongoing pandemic stop her in reaching monumentous heights in 2020. Her achievements last year included a silver and bronze medal at the IWF online Youth World Championships, which was another historical moment for this sport in Malta.
Thornton is now preparing to represent the country at the European Championships in Russia in a few weeks. She will be the second ever Maltese female to participate in such a event, and the younger one to do so. Jesmond Caruana, the national team coach and President of the MWA, was also nominated at this event. His nomination for ‘Coach of the Year’ marks his 12th consecutive nomination in his career. The MWA had two other nomination that made it to the semi-finals; Yasmin Zammit Stevens for SportsWoman of the year and Rylee Borg for Male Youth Athlete of the year. Both athletes were selected in the final 5.