Astonishing story behind weightlifter's Aussie defection
Australian weightlifter Eileen Cikamatana has come a long way from Levuka — the small village in Fiji where she was born.
On Tuesday, Cikamatana secured her place at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with another world-class performance.
However, when her name is up in lights in Paris, it will not be the Fijian flag accompanying it.
After a long road to the Olympic stage, Cikamatana is ready to represent the land she now calls home — the nation that celebrates the amazing things her body can do.
Cikamatana first developed an interest in weightlifting when one of her primary school teachers encouraged her to take up the sport.
“I tried all the sports in school — whatever sports I came across — and I was an athletic student,” she tells Wide World of Sports.
“When my teacher suggested weightlifting, I was like, ‘No, I can’t do weightlifting because it’s for boys, it’s a male-dominated sport’.”
Cikamatana explains that her teacher immediately challenged her thinking by telling her that his niece was competing in weightlifting at the Olympic Games in London at the time.
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