Yamasaki Gets Taste Of Glory

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday March 17, 2006

David Reed

TEENAGE weightlifter Erika Yamasaki claimed Australia's first medal of the 18th Commonwealth Games yesterday afternoon then promptly scoffed enough food and drink to give her a stomach ache.

Yamasaki - who worked as a barmaid until the middle of last year - took bronze in the women's 48-kilogram category, in the process securing her name at the top of the list of the next generation of weightlifting talent.

As expected, the 48kg event was won by Indian veteran Kunjarani Devi, 38, who overcame a 1kg deficit after the snatch to overpower young Canadian Marilou Dozois-Prevost.

But it was the 18-year-old Queenslander who captured the imagination of the opening-day crowd at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre.

Yamasaki was ecstatic with her effort in surpassing a swag of national records she set at the selection trials in December.

"It was unreal just to make it to the Commonwealth Games team, and to get on the podium is unbelievable," Yamasaki said. "This is the biggest competition I have ever been in, so I was a bit nervous."

Yamasaki's snatch of 69kg bettered the Australian record by 2kg, the same amount by which her 84kg clean and jerk increased the national mark. It also created a new total lift benchmark of 153kg.

But she did it tough on the way in, having to drop from the 53kg class to below 48kg - thus the eating binge after the event. Yamasaki took aim at the 48kg category last year and used several dieting strategies, culminating in what's known as a non-residual diet - eating food that moves quickly through the body - in the past week. She made yesterday's weigh-in by just 0.05kg, coming in at 47.95kg.

"That was tough, it was always on my mind but once it was done I just focused on the lifting," she said.

The silver medallist Dozois-Prevost was just as bubbly after surprising herself with second place. The 19-year-old from Montreal was in a plane that overran the runway at Toronto last August, although she escaped with only an injured knee from the evacuation. "It burst into flames and we really thought we were dying," Dozois-Prevost recalled yesterday.

But the Canadian flew home to Montreal the following day and showed similar fortitude in her battle with Devi in yesterday's competition. Dozois-Prevost was leading by 1kg after a snatch of 73kg to Devi's 72kg with Yamasaki third. Devi came back hard but the 19-year-old Canadian forced the Indian to create a Commonwealth Games record with the final lift of the competition - a hefty clean and jerk of 94kg - to claim the gold.

Both youngsters remained in awe of the winner Devi, but Dozois-Prevost forecast that the Indian was now beatable. Devi took gold at Manchester but tested positive to a banned substance at the Athens Olympics where she came in fourth. She also tested positive to strychnine at the 2002 Asian Championships. Malaysia grabbed the second weightlifting gold medal of the Games last night in the men's 56kg category when Mohd Faizal Baharom produced an awesome series of lifts in the men's 56kg event.

Baharom equalled the snatch Games record with a lift of 115kg before streaking away in the clean and jerk to win by 10kg from Indian policeman Vicky Batta.

Baharom had a crack at the Games record total with his final lift after the result was decided but came up short. His final total of 255kg was 5kg outside the Games record and 50kg short of the world-record mark.

Veteran countryman Matin Guntali took the bronze to make it a red-letter night for Malaysia.

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