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Salvi hopes injury won’t bother him in Guam weightlifting tilt
Salvo Villanueva is hoping that his injury won’t be a problem when he and four others compete in next week’s 2015 Micronesia Weightlifting Invitational in Guam set next Saturday, Dec. 12.
Villanueva, Bonny Cruz, Angel San Nicolas, Ray Santos, and Joey Tudela will be joining the one-day tournament at The Jungle inside the Father Duenas Memorial School in Mangilao.
They are entered in different weight classes where they will be aiming for podium finishes in the snatch, clean and jerk, and the total weight events.
“I had to nurse a tweaked shoulder for a couple of weeks but I’m about 100 percent with my strength,” said Villanueva, who added that he and the four other CNMI weightlifters have prepared hard in going up against the region’s best.
Villanueva is also fresh from a silver medal win in the 4th Marianas Trench Throwdown, a CrossFit competition, last October in Tamuning.
Though busy with work and his nursing classes at the Northern Marianas College, where he works at the external relations office, he still managed to balance everything and had the time to train.
“Most of the time I mostly train with Bonny at Gold’s Gym but sometimes on my own. I’ve been really compressed with work and classes for nursing so it’s difficult,” Villanueva added.
He and Ray Santos won six of the CNMI’s 12 medals in weightlifting in last year’s Micronesian Games in Pohnpei.
Villanueva took home the bronze medals in the 77-kilogram division with lifts of 86kg in the snatch and 115kg in the clean and jerk for a 201kg total. He will also compete in the Guam tournament in the same weight category.
Santos won the silver medals in the 62kg weight class ended up with a 215kg total (92kg snatch, 126kg clean and jerk). He will either see action in the same weight division or the heavier 69kg category.
Cruz, like Santos, will either compete in the 69kg or 77kg weight class, while San Nicolas and Tudela are entered in the 94kg and 85kg divisions.
The Guam Weightlifting Federation is organizing the inaugural tournament with the help of Guam National Olympic Committee president Ric Blas and the GNOC board.
The Federated States of Micronesia—Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpeii, and Yap—Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau were also invited by GWF president Ryan Claros to compete in the event.
Villanueva also plans to return to Guam with Tudela, and Nicole Harkness, who also competed in the October Trench Throwdown, in another CrossFit event in January this time organized this by CrossFit Latte Stone.
Tudela and Harkness finished 12th and 15th places, respectively, among the 44 men and 22 women that competed from six different gyms in Guam and three individuals from Saipan.
