Weightlifting refugee Yekta Jamali takes World Cup opportunity to boost her Paris 2024 hopes

Teenager Yekta Jamali boosted her chances of going to the Paris Olympic Games when she made a career-best total in her first competition for the IWF’s Weightlifting Refugee Team (WRT).

Jamali was the best young female weightlifter in Iran when, in 2022, she fled to Germany “in order to be able to continue safely practising her sport”, according to the International Olympic Committee, which funds Jamali and fellow WRT lifter Ramiro Mora with Refugee Athlete Scholarships.

Yekta Jamali (WRT)

Jamali, 19, and 26-year-old Mora lifted at the IWF World Cup in Phuket, Thailand this week. They are both candidates for a place at Paris 2024 and will learn in May whether they have made the IOC Refugee Team. Any places for the Refugee Team are additional to sport-by-sport athlete quotas.

“I hope to be there. It went well today,” Jamali said in Phuket after making 100-125-225 in the 81kg C Group. “I have no family in Germany, and when I arrived I could not train for about six months. But I have friends there who have been so kind and helpful. I am in Frankfurt, and I feel happy now. I hope to get a German passport.”

Jamali, who is studying as well as training, is coached by Almir Velagic, who also moved to Germany from his homeland. Velagic, who left his native Bosnia in a time of war and became a German citizen in 2000, lifted at the Olympics three times for Germany and is now a national coach.

Women were not allowed to practise weightlifting in Iran until 2018. Only one member of the Iran women’s team, the 35-year-old 2022 Asian champion Seyedeh Elham, has ever bettered Jamali’s numbers.

Mora, originally from Cuba and now living in Britain, was less successful in the men’s 102kg on Monday. He made his career best snatch of 162kg and his first clean and jerk at 197kg, but had to withdraw because of an adductor injury.

By Brian Oliver

Photos by Giorgio Scala/Deepbluemedia