WEIGHTLIFTING: It’s no mean feat to be able to lift double your body weight, and Australian weightlifter Erika Ropati-Frost is on a mission to achieve it.
The three-time Commonwealth Games competitor is only a few kilograms off being able to say she is the only Australian to have made the lift.
“The record is literally at my fingertips and I am not going to give in until I get it,” she said.
“I have cleaned 109 kilograms in training and jerked 108 kilograms, so I know I have the strength to do it. I don’t think that it will be too far way now.
“I currently hold many records, but this will be different, this will be something that no one in Australia has done before and I hope it will be something that will keep Australian Weightlifting moving in the right direction.”
After claiming bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the Queenslander was eyeing off a podium finish at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games last year. But the journey to Scotland wasn’t easy. Her husband Tony was diagnosed with cancer in his sinus cavity less than three months before the competition.
She says she tried to pull out of the Games, but Tony told her to go and make him proud.
“Leading into the Glasgow Games we were in and out of hospital. I was working and training full time and there was no time for anything else,” she said.
“I decided to stay at the hospital so I could be there to support and comfort him through the night. I was either sleeping in a chair or on the floor and on a few times I got a bed. When at the gym I would train as hard and efficient as possible.”
Watching his wife finish fifth after lifting six from six, Tony Ropati-Frost couldn’t help but become emotional.
He’d lost 35 kilograms and could barely speak because of radiation treatment to his mouth and throat.
Ropati-Frost says he laid in bed back in Australia, streaming the event on his phone.
“Erika had the toughest time preparing for the Games so to see her go out there and lift the way she did made me out about as proud as any husband can about their wife,” he said.
“She called me straight after and we both had a bit of a teary moment.”
Now Tony in in remission, Ropati-Frost is focused on training for the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
“Going to the Olympics would be the pinnacle of my weightlifting career. It is somewhere all athletes dream of making, but only few get to make it a reality,” she said.
“If I get the chance to step in to that village, I know I would feel so proud to be representing my country and so proud of myself for getting this far.”
For Ropati-Frost to make it to the Rio Games, Australia will need to qualify a female quota spot by finishing in the top three teams at this year’s Oceania Championships in July. There is also the opportunity to qualify two spots at the World Championships in November.
Annie Kearney for olympics.com.au
