XIX Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India – October 3-14-Hopes on Georges for first medal |08 October 2010

In 2006 in Melbourne Australia, female weightlifter Janet Thélermont (now Georges) became the first Seychellois woman to win a medal at the Commonwealth Games. She won a bronze with a total lift of 205kg.

Georges goes into action today in the 69k weight category, and the country is pinning all its hopes on her.

The best result achieved by Seychellois athletes so far in the quadrennial Games are two silver medals through boxers Roland Raforme (heavyweight) and Gerry Legras (light welterweight) after Canadian fighters dashed their gold medal dreams in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 1998. Raforme lost 13-21 to Mark Simmons and Legras 8-16 to Mike Strange.

Seychelles’ other medallist in Melbourne was athlete Céline Laporte, who did not take long to emulate Georges with a bronze medal after registering a best leap of 6.57m in the long jump for a Seychelles record.

In yesterday’s weightlifting contest, Charles Siméon competed in the men’s 77kg category but by the time of going to press his results were not known. But what is certain is that he did not finish among the medallists.

Yukio Peter of Nauru won the gold medal with a combined total of 333kg (148kg in snatch and 188kg in clean & jerk), finishing ahead of Australia's Ben Turner with 308kg and Indian Sudhir Kumar with 297kg.

On Wednesday, Clementina Agricole missed out on the women’s 58kg medals podium, finishing with an Olympic total of 187kg (87kg in snatch and 100kg in clean & jerk) to take fourth place out of 13 competitors.

Her performance was 1kg short of England’s Zoe Smith of England, whose total of 188kg (85kg in snatch and 103kg in clean & jerk) won her the bronze medal.

In track and field athletics on Wednesday, sprinters Alice Khan and Danny D’Souza finished way off their personal best times in the 100m heats.

Khan clocked 12.90 seconds, 82 hundredths of a second slower than her best time of 12.08 seconds and D’Souza stopped the clock in 10.87 seconds, 15 hundredths of a second behind his best of 10.72 seconds.

The results of all the other Seychellois in action yesterday were also not known at the time the paper went to bed.

G. G.