For the first time since 2008, the best weightlifters from around the Pacific will converge on Kiwi shores for the Oceania Championships.
The championship, being held at South Auckland’s Due Drop Arena — formerly named the Vodafone Events Centre — later this month will double as an Olympic qualifier, but Weightlifting New Zealand is pushing itself to the limit to make the event much more than just a competition.
Eight years of dreaming and scheming now culminating in the 2024 Weightlifting Festival starting on Saturday, February 17 and running through to Sunday February 25 – a week-long celebration of the sport and the best the Pacific has to offer in it.
"We are covering every spectrum of weightlifting,” organiser and Olympian Richie Patterson told 1News at the festival’s launch.
“It's a sport that's across the spectrum – big or small. And weightlifting, it doesn't discriminate. You can be anybody and still get strong."
The entry list for the festival proves just that – over 200 athletes will take the stage throughout with over 30 Pacific nations represented.
And while the week crescendos with Oceania Championships as athletes make their final bids for Paris, there will also be junior, senior, masters and fitness competitions packed in to the programme.
There will also be presentations from New Zealand Olympians and even the New Zealand eSports scene is getting involved.
“We’ve got so much variety in terms of activations and give-it-a-go opportunities,” Patterson said.
Despite the plethora of entertainment on offer, admission to the festival will be free with organisers even getting busses together to bring out school kids during the week to add to the atmosphere.
Patterson added inspiring a new generation of weightlifters was one of their big visions for the festival.
"Hopefully it might be a moment where they see an athlete and it might be that moment that's like, 'man, this is something that I could do'."
They won’t need to look far with stars like David Liti lined up to compete as well as some of New Zealand’s up-and-coming talent such as 17-year-old Olivia Selemaia.
Fresh off a fourth-placed finish at last year’s World Youth Championships, Selemaia is one of those pushing for a place in Paris and eager to do so on home soil.
“[Paris] has always been a goal for me,” Selemaia said.
“I did a little slideshow of my goals two years ago and Paris was one of them… [qualifying] would feel unreal for me because I started when I was like, 12, so it’s a bit unreal to be doing all the qualifiers but it’s very exciting."
She’ll have plenty of support in her corner with 30 Kiwis set to compete across the different competitions, including Olympian Cameron McTaggart who is still out for gold next week after confirming to 1News last year he wouldn’t be attending this year’s Olympics.
“This year, training hasn’t been my priority – my work has,” he said.
“But I’ve managed to find the balance around that and I’m actually positioned really well to bring home that gold.”
McTaggart also taking time to give back to the sport as a coach for some of the juniors coming through the ranks – who he believes are the future of weightlifting in Aotearoa.
“Some of the best lifters in the country in their weight classes are actually the juniors – they’re lifting more than the seniors!
“It just goes to show all the learning that us old folk did, we’re now passing it down to them and they’re growing from that and going to beat us.
“The goal is to create weightlifters better than us.”
And what better place to show it than a festival celebrating just that.
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