Adijat Olarinoye was the first athlete to put Nigeria on the medals table at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham as she claimed the gold medal in the women’s 55kg weightlifting. Apart from winning the gold medal, she set a new Commonwealth Games record of 92kg in snatch and 203 kg overall. The 23-year-old who captained Nigeria’s weightlifting team to Birmingham is not a green-horn to global laurels, having won gold medal at the 2019 Africa Games in Rabat, Morocco, and silver medal at the 2021 World Championship held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In this piece, the Lagos, Nigeria-nurtured athlete tells sportsafricana.com that she is gunning for medals at the next Olympic Games
Winning the gold medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games did not come as a surprise to Adijat Olarinoye because the weightlifter believed she had put in enough to make it the podium at the games.
A confident Olarinoye told sportsafricana.com: “I have been training and preparing for real and before my competition day, I just knew that I was going to win the gold. I might not know how it was going to happen, but I had an intuition that I would win.
“I sincerely prayed for the gold medal because when two of my teammates could not make it to the podium, I felt bad. As the captain of the team, I want everybody to be happy and win, so I was like ‘NO’ two lifters have competed and got nothing. I have to be the first Nigerian gold medalist. I was not the first Nigerian medalist, but I was aiming for a gold medal, and it happened.”
“I was crying while the national anthem was being rendered during medal presentation because the jury was not too friendly with me in my clean and jerk which was so obvious to everybody watching the game. Secondly, I remembered 2019 my first All African Games where I won gold. That was my first international competition and I’m currently the Commonwealth Games record holder now and also a Commonwealth Games gold medalist. And I was thinking about my mom, where she would be and the tears rolled down.”
Olarinoye’s romance with sport started at Rowe Park Sports Complex in Yaba where her exposure to weightlifting was ignited her interest. “I fell in love with sports because my mother’s shop was located within Rowe Park Sports Complex in Yaba, Lagos. That was where my passion for sports started. I have tested judo, wrestling and gymnastics before settling for weightlifting. I don’t see weightlifting as a difficult sport because it is just like every other sport.
The International Relations undergraduate of the Nigeria Open University (NOUN) said she decided to fully embrace weightlifting in 2012.
However, Olarinoye disclosed that while her father opposed her choice of sport, her mother supported her. “My father was against my choice of sport because he felt weightlifting was not good for girls. He believed that it might affect my life as a girl. But my mother gave me strong support. I thank her for what she has done and is still doing because she remains my great supporter.”
The risks associated with weightlifting did not deter Olarinoye from taking to it. “Every athlete thinks about injuries. That is why we focus more on the technical aspect, and you must always consult your physiotherapist and not take to self-treatment because you are not a physiotherapist. When you feel pain somewhere in your body, you have to see a physiotherapist. When you notice pain, you don’t go for paracetamol but instead see your physiotherapist.”
Olarinoye said winning medals in major competitions had helped to boost her confidence heading into others.
“I started sports at a very young age. For me the more competitions I attend, the more confident I become and the more experience I gain. I was at the last World Championship where I won a silver and the same set of athletes, I met there were also in Birmingham. I knew most of my competitors, so I was really prepared for them. This time around, there was nothing like a silver or bronze medal but the best medal which is gold. I decided to give it my all.
“When they gave my first red flag, I was like ‘nobody could bully me out of the gold medal spot’. I was determined to go for the best. I cared less about what they (the officials and competitor) were doing. I was focused on my goal which was to win the gold medal. I did not allow what was going on to affect my performance and that was why I showed my pain after I lifted my final weight. I just let out the pain for them to see it.”
Olarinoye has a slim physique for a weightlifter but this is no worry for her.
She said: “Actually I don’t find that difficult. Yes I don’t look much like a lifter. When I tell people I’m a lifter, they doubt me, saying how because I look skinny and it is assumed that slim people can’t be weightlifters. In the past, I hold back from telling people I’m a champion in weightlifting but now I don’t. I don’t look like a lifter but I’m a champion lifter. And I don’t find it difficult among men or my colleagues. I have a boyfriend who appreciates me for who I am.”
Olarinoye’s next goal is to conquer the world by becoming the first Nigerian weightlifter to win gold at the Olympic Games.
“When I was at the World Championship last December, I heard that no Nigerian has won an Olympics gold medal. I was like ‘I want to be the first person to do something the federation has not done before at the World Championship’ which came to pass. I don’t know how but it was God. My dedication and my work ethics made it possible, and my next goal is to win an Olympics gold medal alongside IWF World Championship gold medal,” she said.
On how the wrestling federation helped athletes Olarinoye said: “We are lucky to have a passionate President in the Nigeria Weightlifting Federation who ensured we attend major competitions like the World Championships where most of us qualified for the Commonwealth Games. We are also grateful to the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development for the support to weightlifting. What I just feel they need to do more is to give Nigerian athletes the opportunity to go for more competitions to get more experience that will boost their confidence going into any competitions. We must also thank the Sports Ministry, Mr. Sunday Dare, for the opportunity given to us to be part of the Commonwealth Games because they can decide not to consider weightlifting for the games. Kudos to our minister and the President of Nigeria,” she said.