Sri Lankan weightlifter Srimali Samarakoon won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships 2021 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, on Thursday. 

The twenty-two-year-old talented weightlifter was competing in the women’s 45kg category. 

The Commonwealth Weightlifting Championships 2021 is currently being held concurrently in Tashkent along with World Weightlifting Championships 2021 from December 7 to 17.

Samarakoon is the current holder of the Sri Lanka record in the 48kg weight class category.

In 2011 she won the junior nationals and the senior nationals and won a Silver Medal at the Samoa Youth Commonwealth Games in 2015. She won a Silver Medal at the SAF Games in Bokara, Nepal in 2019 when she lifted 59kg in the snatch event and 81kg in the clean and jerk event. 

The Commonwealth Championships, the most important qualifying event for the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, was earlier scheduled to be held in Singapore in October but was moved to Uzbekistan due to Covid-19 issues.

Tashkent, the Uzbekistan capital and host city for the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Championships from December 7-17, agreed to concurrently host the Commonwealth Championships.

A 20-member contingent of weightlifters were selected by the Sri Lanka Weightlifting Federation (SLWF) in preparation for the Commonwealth Championships and IWF World Championships.