Brandon Wakeling (weightlifting) finished 7th in the 69kg division at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games before making his Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 where he finished 13th in the 73kg. He was just the second indigenous Australian (Wonnarua) to lift at the Olympic Games. Hailing from Campbelltown in southwest Sydney, Wakeling moved to the Gold Coast with his family when he was five. His early sporting dreams were rugby league and long jump, but he was on the smaller side growing up, so took up weightlifting to keep up his physique and to try to match it with the bigger players. He switched focus to weightlifting and has been coached by Miles Wydall at Cougars Weightlifting Club in Brisbane since 2015. After his Commonwealth Games debut in his home city, Brandon won bronze at the 2019 Arafura Games, then gold at the Pacific Games. He set his PBs in clean & jerk (175kg), snatch (127kg) and total (302kg) all at the Queensland Club Challenge in July 2020. Brandon is also an ambassador for Deadly Choices which aims to empower Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders to make healthy choices.