Antonette Labausa smiles after a successful lift in the women’s 81kg category of the 2024 Oceania Weightlifting Championships in Auckland, New Zealand.
THE NMI’s Antonette Labausa won a bronze medal in the women’s 81kg category of the 2024 Oceania Weightlifting Championships, which was held in Auckland, New Zealand on Feb. 17-25.
Labausa also managed to set a new personal best record with a snatch of 75kg and clean & jerk of 100kg for a total weight of 175kg.
“I am happy to have won a bronze medal, although I did not reach my goal total of 180kg,” she said. “I was still able to improve on my clean and jerk competition [personal record], hitting 100kg, along with improving my international competition total by +2kg. I hope to keep raising the bar in the next competitions.”
Labausa said it was a great experience. “The training and competition venue were awesome. I was also glad to see some old friends and make new ones as well. The competition is really stacked. My competitors always put up great numbers, but every competition is different, and anything can happen. I just stayed focus on my own lifting and I’m definitely happy with the outcome.”
After the 2023 Pacific Games, she worked on her weaknesses. However, three days before the competition in New Zealand, Labausa caught a cold. Hydrating became her main focus before competition day.
“Right now, [I’ll get] some rest and recovery so we can hit the ground running again next week to start our prep for the Micronesian Games this coming July. We hope our CNMI Weightlifting Team can continue to do our best to represent our islands well,” Labausa said.
“I would like to thank my partner for her support, my coach and the CNMI weightlifting team for helping me and supporting each other as we took the stage, and lastly my family and friends for cheering me on. Thank you all so much!”
