The Samoa Weightlifting team is on the move again.

This time they are heading to Ashgabat Turkmenistan for Asia Indoor Sports Championship.

President of the Samoa Weightlifting Federation and coach, Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, said this is their first time in the tournament.

“This tournament the Asia Indoor Sports is quite high level, it’s higher than the Commonwealth and the Oceania,” he said.

“To be able to be recognized by this competition is a milestone for the sport because Asia Indoor Sports consists of 87 countries. The quality is close to the Olympic level.” 

The team departs today with the competition starting on Wednesday this week.

The team consists of 10 lifters and two officials.

The majority of the team competed and won medals during the recent Commonwealth and Oceania champs in Australia.

Lauititi Lui and young gun Don Opeloge are included.

According to Tuaopepe, the team is fully prepared. 

“We have prepared for this tournament as much as we can,” he said. “As soon as we arrived back from the tournament in Australia we went back straight to our training. So we are ready.”