Eileen Cikamatana has been drug-tested more than 150 times on her way to Paris
150 drug tests can’t stop Eileen Cikamatana and her coach Mr Weightlifting Paul Coffa believes she can shock the world in Paris.
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She is the Australian weightlifting sensation who is so good she has been drug-tested more than 150 times to prove her innocence.
Eileen Cikamatana is such a rare talent that Oceania’s Mr Weightlifting Paul Coffa, who coached Dean Lukin to gold at Los Angeles in 1984, believes his star pupil can also shock the world in Paris 40 years later.
Coffa, a 60-year weightlifting guru, says the Fiji-born Cikamatana has claims to being Australia’s most gifted Olympian in Paris.
So gifted, in fact, that alarm bells ring.
Anti-doping authorities watch her every move.
Last month, prior to her departure to Italy for a pre-Olympic camp, Cikamatana was drug tested three times in seven days.
Drug testers from Sport Integrity Australia come knocking anywhere, anytime.
Coffa estimates that since Cikamatana’s move to Australia from her mother country Fiji, the two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist has been drug tested about 35 times a year.
The 24-year-old relocated to Australia after a dispute with Fiji weightlifting authorities in 2019.
That means over a five-year period living and competing Down Under, based on Coffa’s calculations, Cikamatana has been drug tested up to 175 times.
Every time, Cikamatana flashes her warm, Fiji-friendly smile and gets the job done.
Every time, she passes with flying colours; a lean, clean weightlifting machine.
“Eileen is one of the best athletes in this country. Truly, the best of the best,” says Coffa, who hopes to pull off the Lukin-Cikamatana gold-medal fairytale quinella four decades apart.
“Unfortunately, in this sport, there is a lot of drugs.
“A lot of testing is done around the world, but we still get positive results in Asia and other continents.
“Four weeks ago, Eileen was competing in Hawthorn (in Melbourne). She got tested on Monday in a random test, she got tested on Thursday and then on Sunday, she got tested again.
“Since coming to Australia, she gets drug-tested on average every 10 days.
“She knows all the drug testers’ names and faces now. They turn up anytime. It’s 6am, she’s asleep, and she gets a knock at the door. Sometimes it’s blood testing, but that’s OK, because she is simply a world-class athlete who has nothing to hide.
“She is tested all the time because they can’t believe how good she is.
“They think there is something else going on behind the scenes, but there’s not … she is clean as a whistle.
“Eileen is a gem. She is a beautiful lifter and a beautiful girl.”
To appreciate her talent, you have to comprehend her commitment. They say greatness is when natural talent meets hard work. Cikamatana, the first woman in history to win Commonwealth gold for two countries, possesses both.
On a good training day, when the joints warm up amid the Melbourne chill, Cikamatana pulls, lifts and squats a jaw-dropping total of 25,000kg across two sessions.
Her personal best in the snatch is 120kg. In the clean-and-jerk, it’s 155kg. She holds four junior world records and claimed gold in the 87kg class at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
In the current world rankings, she is just 5kg from being the top dog.
If true greatness is Olympic gold, Cikamatana is within striking distance.
“I have been coaching for 60 years and Eileen is the best female lifter I have ever coached in my career,” said Coffa, an 82-year-old Hall of Famer who has worked with 540 weightlifters from 15 countries.
“She is so far ahead in Australia it’s not funny. She could take two years off and turn up to the next Commonwealth Games and win a gold medal, that’s how special she is.
“Eileen is committed 150 per cent. It doesn’t matter how strong you are. You have to be committed as well and she is totally committed. She trains twice a day. In her heaviest sessions, she averages about 25 tonnes a day.
“She is a machine.
“This girl is one of the best athletes we have in the Olympic team, if not in the whole of Australia.”
The Paris Games will be Cikamatana’s first and Coffa’s 10th Olympics. Lukin’s great mentor plans to retire … on the condition that Cikamatana wins gold.
“Eileen is capable of anything,” he said.
“She will definitely win a medal in my mind and if she puts her mind to it and the best performance comes out of it, she can win gold, no question.
“We don’t go for bronze, mate, we aren’t there for that.
“We would be very, very, very disappointed if Eileen didn’t win gold.
“She knows how good she is and I know how good she is. Being in the international position I’m in, I know all the opposition and the three girls ahead of her in the rankings.
“She is one of the best chances we’ve ever had for gold in weightlifting at the Olympics.”
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Originally published as Eileen Cikamatana has been drug-tested more than 150 times on her way to Paris
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