Roger Vaughan / AAP News
The Australian Weightlifter has made a sensational start to her Commonwealth Games career coming home with the silver medal in the women’s 64kg category.
Dominant Canadian weightlifter Maude Charron sees some of herself in new Australian star Sarah Cochrane.
Charron put on a clinic in the 64kg category on Monday at the Commonwealth Games, easily winning the gold medal to follow on from last year’s Olympic title.
She set Games records in the snatch, clean and jerk and overall totals.
Charron won with a total of 231kg, 15kg clear of Cochraine, with Nigerian Islamyiat Yusuf next on 212 and England’s Liz Smith 2kg further back in fourth.
Cochrane was seventh at last year’s world championships after narrowly missing Olympic selection and caught Charron’s attention.
“Wow – I saw her compete at worlds and I thought ‘ooh, that girl – she’s coming, she’s coming,” Charron told AAP.
“I see me in her – five years ago, I was in her place.”
Cochrane was pleased with silver, three years after her national debut, and the 32-year-old from Rockhampton wants more.
“I still have some more there. I know I can improve on those lifts,” she said.
“But I’m really happy with how things turned out.
“My coaches did a good job in playing the game with the other lifters – we did what we needed to do and tried to get ahead as far as we could, while conserving a little bit.”
Despite the ease of her win – she secured gold with the first of three successful clean and jerks lifts – Charron said she took nothing for granted.
“It’s easy to say you have three chances to win,” she said
“But if you go with that, it opens a window for you to miss.
“So I just prefer to go and say I have three attempts, I have to make those three attempts … I don’t want to think about winning.”
In the 71kg, Elliott had the bronze until the very last lift of the competition.
After failing on her first attempt and needing brief medical attention, English star Sarah Davies nailed the lift and that put Elliott out of the medals.