01 Jun 2021

Female weightlifter, Magdeline Moyengwa, has proved her mettle by snatching a bronze medal at the just ended African Senior Championships in Kenya.

Prior to the Kenyan meet, she took part in the IWF Junior World Championships Tashkent, Uzebekistan from May 24-31 where she finished on position 13.

Both meets were qualifiers for Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games and the Tokyo 2020.  

A points system would be used to qualify for both competitions.

In an interview, Moyengwa expressed delight about her performance, given her limited preparation time.

She said the Junior World Championships was taxing, but happy with her performance.

Concerning the African Senior Championships, she said she was happy that she managed to salvage a medal, adding that she was not expecting to make it to the podium.

She said her mission was to work hard, to improve her Personal Best and points so that she could qualify for the Olympics.

Meanwhile, in 2019 Moyengwa and Bokang Kagiso became the first-ever athletes from Botswana to compete at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships.

Moyengwa said the COVID-19 pandemic denied her an opportunity to train outside the country.

Furthermore, Moyengwa said she would have loved to train outside the country considering that there was a shortage of equipment locally.

Her coach, Alex Range, said the athlete had not been training well, but they did their best at the Junior World Championships, adding they had registered 130kg as a total but they managed to do 140kg.

He said the athlete did 65kg snatch and 75kg clean and jerk, which he said was a good lift for her considering that she had not been training properly.

The coach said at the African Senior Championships, the athlete was tired given that she did not have enough time to rest before the competition.

He said they were targeting more weights in Kenya, adding that after catching 60kg, they tried to go up with weights and the snatch but unfortunately she kept on missing.

“We got 75kg in the cleaning jerk and we went up in the 80kg, but it was a bit too heavy for her since we have been affected by COVID-19 pandemic, it means they keep on applying sanitiser on the bar, and it had splashed on the platform, and when she tried to spit for the 80 kg she slipped,” the coach said.

He said the athlete got bronze for the clean and jerk and bronze for the total in the 59kg category, adding that all the competitions were tough.ENDS