Commonwealth Games begin as athletes gun for medals

THE Commonwealth Games opened on the Gold Coast yesterday, with the country’s athletes, including Dika Toua and Steven Kari, looking to emulate PNG weightlifting’s 2014 successes.
The country made history at the 2014 Glasgow Games when Toua (women’s 53kg) and Kari (men’s 94kg) brought home two gold medals, joining Ryan Pini (swimming in 2006) and Geua Tau (lawn bowls in 1990) as the only PNG athletes to have achieved the feat. Following in the footstep of his fellow Hanuabada athletes, Morea Baru, the 2016 Rio Olympian who is placed sixth in the world and is the Commonwealth champion in his category, comes into medal contention.
The road has been long for Baru who is often dubbed “the pastor” by his teammates in the Weightlifting Institute in Noumea, New Caledonia, where he lives and trains with coach Paul Coffa.
At 27, Baru has been the top lifter in his division in the Pacific and Mini Pacific Games for years. At the 2014 Games, the man from Hanuabada was placed fourth behind Vaipava Iaone Samoan, who won the bronze medal. Iaone lifted a total weight of 271kg, a mere 1kg more than Baru.
Baru beat Iaone at the 2015 Pacific Games, with a total of 276kg while the Samoan managed to record 271kg.
Baru’s commitment and efforts paid off when he further increased his total to 290kg in Rio where he was placed sixth.
Toua’s younger sister, Thelma, may pull off some surprises too if she continues her 2015 Pacific Games form where she opened the medal tally with three golds – in the clean and jerk, snatch and total.
Charles Keama (52kg) and Thadius Katua (60kg) are the country’s medal hopefuls in boxing.
Katua won gold at the 2015 Youth Commonwealth Games as an 18-year-old. He also took part in Rio.
Keama, the Oceania champion in his division, was the only national boxer in Glasgow to advance to a final where he was beaten by Olympic bronze medallist Paddy Barnes in the quarters.
Barnes, representing Northern Ireland, went on to win gold as he did in 2010.