BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom, Jul 29 – As he prepares for his debut at the Commonwealth Games, Kenyan weightlifter Anthony Masinde has been reflecting on his decorated journey as a sportsman, which began as a rugby player.
The Eastleigh-born and raised weightlifter struggled to carve out a colourful career as a player at top rugby side Kenya Harlequin and was forced to shift focus to another sport.
“It was the challenges with finding a suitable rugby pitch to train that forced me to rethink. You see…I was raised in Eastleigh and to be able to train I had to commute everyday all the way to Ngong Road, which was tedious. There were no rugby pitches nearby,” Masinde recalls.
Lady luck would smile on him when a workout session at the Steel City Gym in Pangani introduced him to weightlifting.
Masinde confesses he was in awe of the brute, inner strength exhibited by the weightlifters as they went about their training.
“I was seated there, marvelling over the beauty of the sport. I started to consider weightlifting as an alternative especially since Steel City is not that far from Eastleigh. Some of the friends I had made invited me to come and spectate at the Olympics qualifiers for London in 2012 and that is when I fully fell in love with the sport,” he explains.
“I decided to try it and the first time I did that I was surprised to see that I had just as much strength to lift weights. I was totally sold and decided to drop rugby for weightlifting. The beauty of this sport is that your physical size doesn’t matter but the strength inside of you,” Masinde adds.
The weightlifter, who also had a stint as an entertainer on popular TV show Naswa, has however gone through bumpy sections on the road to Birmingham.
If things had gone according to plan, he would have made his Commonwealth debut at the last edition in 2018 in Gold Coast, Australia but for a bomb out during the qualifiers.
This is a weightlifting error where the lifter fails to complete at least one successful attempt in a competitive lift.
“In 2018, I could have been part of the Commonwealth Games in Australia but unfortunately, I bombed out and did not qualify. It was quite disappointing and has been a driving force for my dream to compete at this year’s games. Having come this far, I am hopeful of securing a medal,” Masinde says.
Despite wearing a rookie’s tag in Birmingham, Masinde is insistent that this will not define him and will give as much as he gets from his opponents.
“When we went for the qualifiers last year, I finished fourth. I am already familiar with most of the guys against whom I competed and so I won’t be fazed by the occasion. Remember, the qualification conditions were so stringent and only the top 12 were picked so I have as much right to be here as the experienced ones do,” he says.
Masinde will be hoping to lift at least 155kg in clean and jerk and 130kg in the snatch category.
