Gamble gold goes awry for Samoan lifter

07 April 2018, 12:00AM

Team Samoa remains medal-less at the Commonwealth Games after Samoa’s best hope yet failed to make the podium.

Weightlifter Nevo Ioane and his team decided to take a lift to secure gold medal which he failed.

Ioane was only three kilogrammes shy of matching the bronze medal winner but his team made the decision to go for gold. He couldn’t make the lift.

"Yes, we could have,” coach Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork told Radio New Zealand. 

“We had a very short time-frame - I think we had like two minutes in between to make that, make up our minds. The plan was to win a gold medal - he's won a bronze medal. He wanted a gold medal, we wanted a gold medal, the country wants a gold medal and unfortunately we gambled and we missed out.”

A bronze medallist in Glasgow four years ago, Ioane was forced to settle for fourth place on the Gold Coast, in the men's 69kg division, with a total of 292kg.

The 29-year-old finished seven kilograms adrift of gold medallist Gareth Evans of Wales, after failing to land his final two clean and jerk attempts.

Tuaopepe said Ioane paid the price for only completing two of his six lifts.

"When you're at that top level you cannot afford to miss lifts and we did drop the ball. We did miss some snatches and even in those last two attempts, he was by himself but the pressure is on. That was (an attempt at) his personal best so we just have to take the good and the bad, today was not our day and we missed out on that gold," he said.

Tuaoepe had predicted all six of his weightlifters would medal on the Gold Coast but the veteran coach said Ioane's disappointment should serve as a wake-up call to the rest of the team.

07 April 2018, 12:00AM
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