Member of the national weightlifting team, Ruth Baffoe has sealed her qualification to represent Ghana at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in Australia.
She finished 9th out of 23 lifters in the women’s 53kg category at the ongoing Commonwealth Weightlifting Championship in Australia which also serves as a qualification competition for the Commonwealth Games.
She lifted 70kg for snatch and 81 for clean and jerk making a total of 151kg to seal a qualification for next year’s Games.
In all, the top 12 lifters in the 53kg have qualified for the Commonwealth Games.
Speaking in an interview with Awake Sports, the excited lifter was however sad that the she could not make it to the medal zone but thanked God for getting a qualification for Ghana.
She explained that she entered the competition just after arriving in Australia and could not get enough chance to train.
She called on Ghanaians to support weightlifting especially among the women so that the country can boast of more women get them to represent the country at international competitions.
In a related development, David Akwei also a member of Cranes won bronze in the 62kg youth category after making a snatch lift of 82kg and 115kg for clean and jerk making a total of 197kg but that could not grant him a slot for the Commonwealth Games.
This was his first major international competition after joing the Ghana Weightlifting Federation (GWF) about two years ago.
He was scouted at the GWF youth development programme sponsored by Indomie and has been training with the national team since. This is a plus for the developmental programme after Richmond Osarfo also achieved a similar feat last year.
Head Coach of the team, Kyle Pierce also told us that Christian Amoah is also on the verge of qualifying for the Games after snatching 135kg and lifting 162kg for clean and jerk making a total of 297kg.
He explained that per his calculation, Christian Amoah is currently ranked 8th out of 12 in that men’s 85kg category but added that there is another qualification tournament in October and that would determine Christian’s qualification.
Forrester Osei and Richmond Osarfo would take their turn today in the men’s 94kg and 105kg category respectively.