Olympian McTaggart lifting NZ's next generation as a coach

Kiwi Olympian Cam McTaggart is looking to pass the torch on to the next generation of Aotearoa's weightlifters as a coach for the New Zealand team at next month's Under-23, Junior and Youth Oceania Championships in Samoa.

McTaggart is part of New Zealand's largest team to head to the event since before the Covid-19 pandemic with 16 athletes competing, all of which is being self-funded, across the three-day event from October 5th to 7th.

"We have some really, really strong young athletes so we're looking to not only bring out the individual medals but the total ahead of other countries like Samoa and Australia," McTaggart told 1News.

It'll be a full-circle moment for 25-year-old McTaggart who 10 years ago made his international debut in weightlifting at the same event and, co-incidentally, in Samoa as well.

"I remember walking on to that stage in Samoa and it's an electric atmosphere - you have local schools come along and quite often they pit them against each other and in between lifts there's dancing and they're making so much noise.

"It's the best way to get into international weightlifting."

Before then, he was a gymnast for seven years - a skillset that has helped him in his career - but after spotting a Kiwi weightlifting great in the newspaper, he made a shift.

"I saw Richie Patterson had gotten back from the 2010 Commonwealth Games where he'd picked up a silver there and he was talking about trying to find young athletes to try and get into the sport," McTaggart recalled.

"I turned up at the gym unannounced... I was 13-years-old, 37 kilos so I was tiny and I'm pretty Richie thought I was seven years old!

"But I picked up a broomstick, could hit all the [lifting] positions really well and really strong, knew what I was doing because I had the body awareness and flexibility from gymnastics, and he said, 'come do weightlifting'.

"I haven't looked back since."

Patterson quickly became a mentor to McTaggart and has helped him forge his own weightlifting career with the silver fern, having since won gold medals at the Oceania Championships and Pacific Games as well as competed at two Commonwealth Games [2018 and 2022] and making his Olympic debut in Tokyo.

But with McTaggart making the tough call to end his pursuit of a second Olympics in Paris next year, he has instead decided to follow in his former mentor's footsteps with coaching.

"Having the support network that I had then [in 2013] at that competition, it's where I really fell in love with the sport and where I realised where I wanted to take it to so I'm hoping to have that same impact on the athletes that we're taking there."

McTaggart will be a "tournament coach" in Samoa, meaning while he hasn't been part of their training extensively in the build-up to the competition, he will be a significant figure for the 16 young Kiwis when they take the stage next month.

"Competition coaching is a completely different thing to coaching in the gym," he said.

"In the gym, we're very technical and focusing on the movement but when we're over there, it's all about the competition - we don't want to be missing lifts over there like we do in training and a big part of that is tactics."

Strategy plays a large role in weightlifting competitions with athletes and coaches predicting, countering and sometimes even bluffing to make the absolute most of the limited amount of attempts they get in an event.

McTaggart knows it all too well, having to adjust his tactics on the fly at last year's Commonwealth Games after a "rough warm-up" threw plan A out the window.

But that experience and others will be helpful next month - for both coach and athlete.

McTaggart's decision to not pursue the Paris Olympics stems from his realisation he had "put my life on hold" for the sport he loves.

Random drug tests, strict schedules and intense training became part of the daily grind for the 25-year-old.

But the biggest sacrifice, as is the case with many minor sports in New Zealand, was finances.

"Weightlifting is pretty much entirely self-funded," he said.

"So rather than spending money trying to qualify - we have six international competitions and they're not in the easiest places to get to - I've decided to put my time into my career and really giving back to these young athletes."

McTaggart hopes there can be some discussion around funding distribution to sports in New Zealand, though.

"I'd love to see more money funnelled to smaller sports. I think there's plenty of money in New Zealand given to sport in general but it's just how it gets distributed that needs to be looked at - rather than giving money to sports once they've won Olympic medals, why not give it to sports that have the potential to and are going to get there?

"Weightlifting New Zealand has worked extremely hard with limited resources, just all volunteers. Everyone going over to these [Youth] Games, it's all off our own backs.

"I think a little bit of help along the way would be awesome."

In the meantime, it'll be McTaggart instead offering a little bit of help to the New Zealand's next group of weightlifters where there may just be a medal in the rough.