Marie Fegue won the women’s 69kg weightlifting category on Monday to hand Cameroon its first Commonwealth Games gold medal since 2002.
“A hard year of work has paid off by winning the gold. That was my only goal,” said Fegue, after totalling 234kg from a 102kg snatch and 132kg in the clean and jerk.
The last Cameroon gold was won by weightlifter Madeleine Yamechi at Manchester 2002, and Fegue’s was the African country’s 10th gold medal in Games history, all having been won in weightlifting.
Nigerian Itohan Ebireguesele claimed silver with 222kg (100+122) to go one better than her bronze four years ago in New Delhi.
Canada’s Marie-Josee Ares-Pilon won bronze this time around with a total of 214kg (99+115).
The evening session saw New Zealand’s Richard Patterson win gold in the men’s 85kg final, snatching 151kg and clean and jerking 184kg for a total of 335kg.
Indian Vikas Thakur took the silver with 333kg (150+183) and Canada’s Pascal Plamondon bronze on the same total (151+182), having failed his initial snatch.
