Women Weightlifters Eye London Olympics

After the men weightlifters have made their presence felt at the Olympics, their women counterparts are eyeing the games beginning with the London 2012 Olympic Games. Two Olympics-potential women athletes were Zairah Zakaria in the 53kg category and Raihan Yusof in the 58kg category.

Zairah and Raihan had competed in the Asian Weighlifting Championship in Japan in April and the qualifying round for the Beijing Games but failed to make the cut. Zairah is the national weightliting record holder in the 53kg category with total weight lifted of 154kg comprising a 68kg snatch and 86kg clean and jerk in the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Raihan holds the national record in the 58kg category lifting a total of 176kg in the 2007 Korat SEA Games. She also won three gold medals in the same category in the 2006 Sukma Games in Kedah.

Even though they are eyeing the Olympics, they are now preparing for the Laos SEA Games next year and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi in 2010.

As a Malaysian sports fan, we hope they both do their best to achieve this targeted goal. If their coach belief that they can get it, then surely they both must put an effort to achieve it. With the spirit of Malaysia Boleh, we wish them success. My personal view are simple, we know the task are hard to get but lets be realistic, everything in this world that we havent got is hard to get. But when we set objectives, we work for it and we do our best in order to achieve it. Before it could be no one put hope that men weightlifters can compete in Olympics but they did it. So the goal is standstill there, but the road to achieve the goal is challenging. Believe me, if the coach already pave the way to that goal then no one is better know their athlete better than their coach itself.

*Taken from Bernama.com