Australian weightlifter Eileen Cikamatana: My quest to be the best in the world
The Fijian-born Aussie is one of the stars competing at the 2023 Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands. The double Commonwealth Games is looking to continue a brilliant run of form as she eyes the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Eileen Cikamatana's career has come a long way.
From a tender age, the weightlifting prodigy helped her father carry around animal feeds on their farm in Levuka, a small village in Fiji.
Her dad owned pigs and the then 11-year old Eileen would offload 50kg-sacks of animal feeds and other goods from his truck.
The hard work paid off.
One of her schoolteachers started the Fijian-born Australian on the road to success.
“When I started hearing about weightlifting, I thought it was only for boys until I saw girls from my island competing at the Olympics,” Cikamatana told ABC News.
She got fascinated by her new sport and has since risen to become one of the best female lifters in the Pacific region.
The first woman to win Commonwealth Games gold for two countries, is one of the stars contending for medals at the Sol2023 Pacific Games in Honiara, the Solomon Islands, as she aspires to qualify for Paris 2024.
“My ultimate dream for the Olympic Games is to finish up as a podium athlete, gold will be an extra blessing…”
Turning fear of weights into power
After putting her strength into good use around her dad’s farm, Cikamatana, was keen to see how much more she could lift in a sporting environment.
The double world medallist was anxious at first about bearing heavy weights.
“When you start, you're nervous, and you ask yourself, whether I'm able to lift this weight, or whether I can't," she said.
Her fear quickly turned into power.
“That was the actual thing that attracted me to the sport because it challenged me to break my barriers and my fear.”
"In training, it's your mind that takes over the body. And you really need to focus because you're lifting weights.
“You really need to get into that relationship with you and the bar. Because weights are dead weight, they don't have feelings, but you have feelings.”
Cikamatana made huge gains in her junior career in her lifts and turned out to be an exceptional talent.
After tapping into her own strength and joining the growing trend of teenage lifters in Fiji, the rising star left her home at 16 to embark on a remarkable journey.
The lifter who mainly competes in the 87kg category relocated to the South Pacific Island of New Caledonia to train at the Oceania Weightlifting Institute there.
“If I don’t train a day, I feel sick,” the 24-year-old said in a television interview expressing a deep passion for the sport.
“That’s my life that’s what I chose, that’s what brings me happiness.”
“I want to be the best that I can possibly be and to do that, I need to remain committed and focused every single day,” the 2023 world bronze medallist added.
On raising the bar and her weighty golden ambitions for Paris
A bronze medal from the 2016 World Youth and silver from the 2017 World Juniors earned her the 2017 Fiji sportswoman of the year Award as one of the youngest recipients in history.
As a junior, the weightlifting prodigy set four world junior records and continued her remarkable run of success with gold at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.
Cikamatana moved to Sydney as she wanted to continue training with the renowned coach Paul Coffa, and that’s when she also accepted the offer to compete for Australia.
But the Oceania weightlifting star was unable to compete for the Aussies at Tokyo 2020 in 2021. It only increased her desire to represent Australia at Paris 2024.
"If I miss out on this one, we can always go to the next one, which is 2024, and that's our main goal," said Cikamatana who clinched her second Commonwealth Games title last year for Australia, just months after silver at the World Championships.
“Getting that gold medal, that’s one of the rarest and biggest dream.”
“People say it’s impossible, but anything is possible whenever you put your heart, your mind, and soul into it, the minute you step away from that drive, that’s when you find yourself a problem.”
In 2022, Coffa considered the ‘father figure of weightlifting in the Pacific region’ became the first coach to be inducted into the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.
Coffa, 81, believes Cikamatana can keep up her steady progress and become his third athlete among the 540 athletes from 15 countries he has coached, to clinch an Olympic gold.
“She’s committed 100%. And unless you have that feeling, that driving force that makes you the best, you are not going to be the best, you are not going to make it. And she’s got every bit to be a world champion.”