Athlete of the week

Weightlifter Loredana Toma

Florin Orban, 13.12.2022, 13:45

Two members of the Romanian delegation competing in the World
Weightlifting Championships, underway in Bogota, Colombia, on Monday walked away with two
more medals for the Romania delegation. Loredana Toma won gold in the combined
total and in the snatch style, in the 71-kilogram category. In the snatch style, Loredana Toma performed a deadlift of 119 kilograms, setting the category’s new
world record. For her noteworthy feat, Radio Romania
International designated Loredana Toma the Athlete of the week.

Loredana’s set target for the competition in Bogota
was the winning of a gold medal. A many-time awardee in World and European championships,
Loredana Toma was designated the Best Athlete of the year in 2021 by the European
Weightlifting Federation. Loredana counted as the favorite athlete in the
71-kilogram category, a recently-introduced category in Olympic competitions,
between the 64 and the 76-kilogram category. Notwithstanding, expectations were
not so high regarding her performance in the snatch style. In the clean-and-jerk style, Loredana Toma came in 4th, with a deadlift of 137
kilograms. In the combined total, Loredana Toma came in 1st,
with 256 kilograms. With 253 kilograms, China’s Tiantian Zeng came in 2nd,
while Angie Palacios of Ecuador came in 3rd, with 252 kilograms. All
told, the Romanian delegation’s medal tally in Bogota in made of three medals, namely,
the two medals won by Loredana Toma and the silver medal won by Mihaela Cambei in the snatch style, in the 49-kilogram
category.

Loredana
Toma was born on May 10, 1995, in the northern Romanian town of Botosani. In
the early days of her career, Loredana won several gold medals in Juniors and
Youth European competitions. In seniors’ competitions, in 2013 and 2014, Loredana
Toma won silver in the 58-kilogram category. Between 2014 and 2016, Loredana
was banned from competition, having tested positive for stanozolol. Beginning with
the European championships in Croatia as of April 2017, Loredana Toma has
dominated the 63-kilogream category, in the snatch as well as in the clean-and-jerk
style. She confirmed her standing in the World Championships in Anaheim, the
USA, in December 2017, winning three more gold medals. In the European Championships
held in Bucharest in 2018, Loredana Toma yet again won all medals up for grabs. In
2019, at the European Championships in Batumi, Loredana Toma won three gold
medals. In the 64-kilogram category Loredana Toma won two bronze medals, in the
clean-and-jerk style and in the combined total, as part of the World Championships
in Thailand in 2019. Also in the 64-kilogram category, at the European
Championships in Moscow, in 2021, Loredana won three gold medals. The International
Weightlifting Federation imposed a one-year ban on the Romanian Federation, on account
of Romanian athletes’ violating the anti-doping regulations on a number of
occasions. Therefore, Loredana Toma could not participate in the 2021 edition
of the Tokyo Olympics, where she was a top-seed athlete in the 64-kilogram category.(EN)