Saniha, Twinkle win eight gold medals

LAHORE: Saniha Ghafoor and Twinkle Sohail gave a grand victory to Pakistan by winning 4 gold medals each in squat, bench-press, dead-lift and in total in 57 and 72kg respectively in the Oceania-Pacific (Men & Women) Powerlifting Championships being held in Singapore.

Pakistan male athletes also grabbed three gold medals in different categories taking the gold medals tally to 11 in the event so far. Saniha Ghafoor opened Pakistan victory in squat event of 57kg category and did not let anyone to let the lift weight higher than her.

Saniha also showed brilliant performance in bench-press and dead-lift events. Her performance was praised by everyone at the championships. She has been invited by Australian Powerlifting Federation for three month training programme sponsored by Australian Sports Commission at Melbourne.

2015 Asian Gold Medalist Twinkle Sohail (72kg) repeated her historic performance and won all 4 gold medals of the Championships. Men’s team also kept Pakistani flag high in 105kg category by Syed Nadeem Hashmi in Masters-1 by winning gold medal. Ahmed Khan also clinched gold medal in 120kg sub-junior category. Mahmood Heera of Pakistan won gold medal in 120kg Masters-1 Category by beating his long rival Japanese player to whom he lost gold in 2015 at Muscat, Oman. Pakistan team will return home on December 12.