Lesmarie Purcell Ioane was one of the proudest powerlifters at JP's Gym Mulivai when she snatched the gold medal for the 80+ kgs at the Samoa Powerlifting Nationals Championship on Saturday.

It was a sweet moment to share it with her husband who introduced her to the sport and was also competing.

"I'm just very happy and proud about this achievement. I entered this sport about seven years ago when I met my husband. He's always been very interested in powerlifting, " she said.

"I slowly transitioned into it and from then I just fell in love with the sport. I've been competing in Utah for a while and then when we moved home two years ago in Pago we decided to continue with the sport. We were very grateful that we were part of the Team American Samoa." 

Mrs. Ioane believes that powerlifting for her is a mental sport. The challenging part of powerlifting for her is the strict diet she has to go through however since her husband is also into powerlifting, she has nothing to worry about.

"The whole physical and mental support has been tremendous going into this sport with my husband. This is our first time competing together in an international tournament. 

"We've always done a couple back home so this is our very first time competing together internationally and it's just different. The support system, physically, mentally and emotionally is incredible."

Next up on their list is the Oceania, which will be hosted in Nauru in October. Mrs. Ioane's dream doesn't stop there. She hopes Powerlifting is included in the Olympic Games.

The President of the Samoa Powerlifting sport in Samoa, Pepe Christian Fruean in an interview with the Samoa Observer elaborated on their annual competition.

"Our main competition is called the Samoa Powerlifting Nationals Championships, it's the main annual competition whereby we test our lifters and we use it as a qualification for Oceania," he said.

"So this year the Powerlifting Oceania Championship is being held in Nauru so this competition is a way to see where our lifters are and start fundraising, and start looking for ways to get these lifters there. 

"As you can see, Samoans are very talented at powerlifting and because of that, we need to have regular competitions so that they can keep training hard and aiming for things like the Pacific Games and Oceania Games." 

Powerlifting is an individual sport and has a very small number in Samoa. There are only four athletes in Samoa that competed in today's championships and three from American Samoa. 

"The training is very very hard. People have to be very motivated and committed to the sport. But as you can see the people are training hard and their performance is very good," said Pepe. 

"Samoa is one of the best powerlifting nations in the Pacific, and even though we don't have the numbers, usually when our athletes go to any Pacific Games we win three, four or five gold medals."

Pepe also took the opportunity to invite anyone interested in Powerlifting to come and join their team on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at JPs Gym at Mulivai.