News

Paul Coffa, the Oceania Weightlifting Federation
General Secretary and coach of the Oceania Weightlifting Institute
in Sigatoka, Fiji, on Tuesday, 20th September, lost his red sports
car to one of his young weightlifters, 21 year old Yukio Peter from
Nauru.

Coffa promised Yukio on his 21st birthday on January
29th this year, that the moment he clean & jerked 200kg in the
77kg category, he would hand over the keys of his sports car to him.
At that time Yukio was doing 182.5kg.

Tuesday night in training at the Institute in
Sigatoka, Fiji, in preparation for the Commonwealth & Oceania
Championships to be held in Melbourne on October 5th – 9th, Yukio
clean & jerked 202.5kg weighing 76.7kg. Unfortunately the lift
cannot be claimed as a record as he did it in training. Nevertheless
Coffa kept his end of the bargin and handed over the keys to his
sportscar.

Coffa said that, ” a performance such as this
deserves a car. “

Yukio is only 7.5kg away from the world
record and there is no question now that he is after the gold medal
in Beijing. Some of his training performances are 160kg snatch,
190kg power clean and back squat 280kg.
Ten days ago he
officially in competition totaled 350kg.

Coffa has been
training Yukio since the age of 12 years. Yukio trains 11 times per
week and never misses a training session. He placed 8th in the 69kg
category at the Athens Olympics with a total of 302.5kg

Yukio
Peter is an IOC Olympic Solidarity Scholarship holder.

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OCEANIA WEIGHTLIFTING
FEDERATION