Everyone keeps asking me what my plans are for the future and about the next Commonwealth games and Olympics. To be honest I have a few big decisions to make as well as working through a few changes but the master plan is to compete next year in the Commonwealth games qualifying competitions in Gold Coast and Malaysia. Once qualified I will continue to train and build my way towards the competition which will be in April 2018. This will be my last campaign, my last international and my last day as an athlete. I will retire after the competition surrounded by my family, friends and everyone else who has been there for me in one way or another. I would love to go to Tokyo 2020, however I would like a role in athlete support or mentoring, hopefully by then New Zealand Weightlifting would have another female step up for the athlete spot, we have a lot of talent coming through which is great

Enough of that talk now, it’s not time to focus on retirement but on how to get the best results and  achieve success in my 2018 Commonwealth Games campaign. Next up though is the 2016 National champs where my build up has been interesting to say the least.

After getting home from Rio and having a short break, I have now gotten back into fulltime training. It feels a little weird to be training for another competition, especially after all the excitement I have had this year. It’s always harder competing after a big international, but every year I look forward to Nationals, even more so this year because it will be here at AUT Millennium.

Not sure how many people know but next year we will host the World Master Weightlifting Championships here at AUT Millennium, so in order to prepare, our national champs will act as dress rehearsal and will be presented and run like an international. These nationals will run over 3 days and will include international athletes who have been invited to compete. I’m excited to watch our New Zealand athletes battle out for the titles and see records broken. A lot of the athletes over that weekend will be looking at making the 2018 Commonwealth Games team. There is just so much to look forward to in the next couple of years.

Feel free to come watch the nationals which will be down in the sports hall from the 14/10-16/10, I will compete on the 16th at 12pm, should be great to watch as the 2014 silver Commonwealth Games medallist from Samoa will be coming to compete against me. I would love the support and to see weightlifting get the crowd it deserves.

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