Nigeria is maintaining the second position behind Australia of Day 1 of Glasgow Commonwealth games.
Nigeria won its third gold medal of the Para Powerlifting competition when Riluwan Idris pushed the bar to 208kg on his second attempt in the Men’s Heavyweight event.
Nigeria has three gold and three silver medals by the close of the day.
England’s Matthew Harding took silver and Jhandu Kumar of India claimed the bronze.
Also veteran lifter Folashade Oluwafemiayo defended her Women’s Heavyweight title on a night of Para Powerlifting world records and Nigerian pride at the SEC Armadillo on Friday.
The two-time Paralympic champion justified her top billing by setting a world best mark for lifters 86kg and over before bettering even that with her final attempt of the competition.
“If you have passion for something, there’s no other way,” Oluwafemiayo (pictured), 41, said. “You go with your whole heart. It’s about the passion, but also the resilience and the discipline.”
Oluwafemiayo piled the pressure on the rest of the field from the outset, going after her own Commonwealth Games record of 165kg on her opening lift, and making it look easy.
She followed up with an audacious shot at 172kg – four kilogrammes more than she lifted at the 2025 world championships in Egypt last October – and nailed that, too.
The gold medal secured, she pushed the bar to 175kg and recorded her third successful lift of the night – each one a record.
“175 is not easy,” she said. “I was not expecting it, I was just calculating based on my training.
“If you have passion for something, there’s no other way,” Oluwafemiayo (pictured), 41, said. “You go with your whole heart. It’s about the passion, but also the resilience and the discipline.”
Oluwafemiayo piled the pressure on the rest of the field from the outset, going after her own Commonwealth Games record of 165kg on her opening lift, and making it look easy.
She followed up with an audacious shot at 172kg – four kilogrammes more than she lifted at the 2025 world championships in Egypt last October – and nailed that, too.
The gold medal secured, she pushed the bar to 175kg and recorded her third successful lift of the night – each one a record.
“175 is not easy,” she said. “I was not expecting it, I was just calculating based on my training.
“It’s the preparation and the love that I have for the sport. There’s no champion forever, so you just keep on training.”
Teammate Rita Ferdinand did all she could to claim the silver, setting a world record of her own for the women’s +79kg category of 158kg on her final lift.
Unlike at the Paralympic Games, the Commonwealth Games heavyweight category for athletes over 61kg uses a coefficient formula to score lifts against the athletes’ individual body weights.
“I feel very awesome, my happiness knows no bounds,” Ferdinand said. “Folashade is like an idol to me. I look up to her and I wanted to be a world-record holder like she is.”
Another close friend but on-platform rival of Oluwafemiayo, Hani Watson of Australia, took the bronze.
It was a night of outstanding performances at a raucous SEC Armadillo. The die was cast when Thamar Gisele Mengue of Cameroon – who finished fourth at Birmingham 2022 – recorded a personal best of 113kg on her final lift.
“I’m very proud of me because people are just seeing the end of the process, they are just there for the ‘good lift’ or the ‘no lift’,” Mengue, who receives GAPS funding from Commonwealth Sport, said.
“They will never see what you pass through to be at that stage of the competition. Just to qualify you have to spend four years and it’s not easy.
“You have to keep working, you have to keep going, and even when you fall down you have to rise and continue.”
Vanuatu’s Marek Sahi fouled her first two goes at 56kg but pushed the bar to 60kg for her final attempt and held it, drawing appreciative cheers from the crowd.
“The crowd response made me happy,” she said. “I only started powerlifting last year. It’s my first time at the Commonwealth Games and I’m so proud to be here representing Vanuatu.”
