IWF120y/28 – 2021: Ecuador celebrates its brightest Star – Neisi Dajomes

After a participation in the 1924 Olympics, Ecuador only returns to the Olympic arena from 1968 onwards. Following the Paris 2024 Games, the country has secured 10 medals in the biggest sports event on the planet. Four of them come from weightlifting – and all of them from women! Neisi Dajomes is the brightest star among those Ecuadorian idols: at the Tokyo 2020ne, she becomes the first female Olympic gold medallist for her nation, after winning the 76kg category, in 118-145-263. Born on May 12, 1998 she enters the sport through her older brother Javier (who passed away in 2018) and competed in 2011 in her first IWF event, the Youth World Championships. Two years later, she wins her first title precisely in that competition and gets the silver at the 2015 Pan-American Games. Her first Olympic participation, in Rio 2016, concludes with a seventh place. After several medals at the world and continental level, she is the Olympic champion in Tokyo (JPN). “After that win, Ecuador discovered weightlifting and started following the Sport. Moreover, it also deeply changed the way people were looking at women’s weightlifting,” Dajomes admits. Qualified for her third Olympics, she earns bronze (122-145-267) in the 81kg category last year in the French capital (photo). She becomes the only Ecuadorian female athlete with more than one Olympic medal. Weightlifting is a matter of family for Neisi – following the example of their late brother, three other siblings are also competing at the highest level in the Sport: Angie (also third in Paris 2024, in the 71kg category), Jessica, and German. Besides the three medals in the Dajomes family, Tamara Salazar (silver in Tokyo 2020ne) completes the group of illustrious female weightlifters in Ecuador.