New Zealand's David Liti continues to lift expectations as he competes at his third Pacific Games

Does motivation for weightlifting ever get easier?

“Weightlifting is more of a mental game," says David Liti, New Zealand’s flag bearer at the 2023 Pacific Games, in an interview with ABC News.

"if you are sharp in your mind, you will be fine,” according to one of the strongest men in New Zealand.

Despite putting years of intensive training, there are days the Commonwealth Games 2018 champion needs more than just his muscles.

From pumping himself up with self-talk to hyping up the crowds from the podium, Liti knows how to have fun while handling the heavy weights, and has truly mastered the psychology of weightlifting.

“Never back down [because] the mind is strong and so is the body. When you do fail, get up, walk it off, then come back and go at it again” he adds.

That mentality has kept the former rugby player in the gym for the past decade and has helped him rise to become the King of the Oceania’s super heavyweights.

He is now ready to showcase his hard work at the Sol2023 Pacific Games in Honiara, the Solomon Islands, another chance to tune up for what he hopes is his second Olympic Games appearance in Paris next year.

David Liti’s passion for power and strength

Liti’s joy towards weightlifting is infections. Flipping through his social media platforms, you can almost feel his passion.

He is mostly loading the bars before turning them for the best grips.

Then he smoothly drops his 1.88m (six-foot-two-inch) frame whenever he goes under for the bulky snatches, often ending with a grin.

On the competition platform, he is the lifter who is always blowing kisses to the crowds.

The 27-year-old has even fashioned his own fun way of making weights look light and easy – wearing balaclavas and sunglasses while training, as he demonstrates below.

It’s hard to imagine that he’s hooked on a sport he could barely grasp when he first tried in 2014.

“I never quite liked going to the gym, and I thought that people who went to the gym were cheaters. But over the years, I have learnt a lot from weightlifting, like being stronger as a person physically, emotionally and mentally as well,” he shared in a television interview with sponsor Toyota.

"He didn't like it, and he used to come really randomly,” adds his longstanding coach Tina Ball, who introduced liti to weightlifting.

“[He’d be like], 'sorry miss I'm tired', then he'd disappear to play rugby for a while, then he went home to Tonga once and I didn't see him for three months,”

“So the early days were very spasmodic, and he also used to have quite bad knees, he couldn't squat under the bar.”

The journey from a Tongan rugby player to a Kiwi weightlifter

As a young boy growing up in Auckland to Tongan parents, Liti loved chasing or running around with the ball.

He tried football, though he loved rugby more, but an injury that kept him out of the pitch for some time led him to his current obsession - weightlifting.

“Ever since I came to New Zealand, my goal was to be a policeman. I just thought policemen were cool, all this world would be so much better with better policemen, everybody would be policemen,” he recalled of his early days in Auckland after spending most of his childhood in Tonga.

“Time goes on, and you realise there’s rugby. You try out rugby, you try out soccer and all these other sports, and I think weightlifting - it’ll be the biggest change in my life, unexpected, it just happened all of a sudden.

“There’s a saying I always keep in mind. It’s ‘sports before courts’. I think I would be one of those spending a lot of time in court, instead of out of trouble. I’m glad that I’m here taking the right path, going into sports.”

The South Aucklander rose to become a household name in New Zealand, representing the country in several competitions.

David Liti on building a pathway for Pacific Island athletes

His greatest haul to date has been his surprise gold medal lift at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Winning the title on Australia's Gold Coast was a big change for him, considering he went to the multisport event as an outsider.

“The Commonwealth Games 2018 Gold Coast was the biggest change for me. I had nothing to lose, I just went ahead and decided to have fun and enjoy the experience.”

That gold encouraged the Kiwi to put in the work and get “bigger and better”. He is now competing at his third Pacific Games, where he can earn more ranking points for qualification for Paris 2024.

"I competed at the last two Pacific Games, and it's a special competition for me with my Pacific heritage. There’s some really good weightlifters in the Pacific so it’s going to be a good competition” Liti who finished fifth at the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021, said in a Team NZ statement ahead of departure for Honiara.

“I aim at getting the direct qualification, by having a total amongst the best 10 of the world hierarchy. In Paris, I hope to do better than in Japan, so I will fight for a podium. The colour of the medal is not important.”

But the two-time Commonwealth Games medallist’s mains target, is that his success can be a catalyst for other Polynesian athletes.

“I want to build an institute, to help more of the Pacific Islanders, to help them realise they can do more in sports than they think they can,” he said.

“A lot of my goals in the future [are] towards building the institute, helping others, helping them achieve their fullest potential.”

The 2023 Pacific Games is taking place between 19 November – 2 December, with coverage live on Olympic Channel via Olympics.com in some territories.