Eileen Cikamatana has been lifting weights since she was a child — just not conventional ones.
The Fijian-born Australian citizen grew up in a small village, where she'd help her dad run errands.
He had pigs to look after, so naturally needed a hefty amount of pig feed.
Cikamatana says she was close to her dad growing up, as she did "boys' work instead of a girl's work".
At 11 years old, Eileen would ride with him in his truck, helping deliver goods, and then load 50-kilogram sacks of meal mix onto the truck.
She'd unload 50-kilogram gas cylinders for good measure too.
So when a schoolteacher asked her if she'd like to try weightlifting, it was a no-brainer.
"When I started hearing about weightlifting, I thought it was only for boys until I saw girls from my island competing at the Olympics," Cikamatana said.
"And then I was eager to try the sport."
Mind over matter
Once Cikamatana committed to weightlifting, she was hooked.
And she says her mental strength has been key to her success.
"When you start, you're nervous, and you ask yourself, whether I'm able to lift this weight, or whether I can't," she said.
"That was the actual thing that attracted me to the sport because it challenged me to break my barriers and my fear."
"In training, it's your mind that takes over the body. And you really need to focus because you're lifting weights.
"You really need to get into that relationship with you and the bar. Because weights are dead weight, they don't have feelings, but you have feelings."
Golden highs and post-Games blues
When Cikamatana was 15 she left home to move to New Caledonia, an established base for lifters from the Pacific region.
She truly emerged on the international scene as an 18-year-old when she won gold for Fiji at the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.
It was an incredible high — but a low quickly followed.
The Fijian Weightlifting Federation brought in a new coach who insisted she relocate from her New Caledonia training base back to Fiji.
Cikamatana knew that wasn't in her best interests, and she decided to follow her coach Paul Coffa to Australia.
She was given a distinguished talent visa, but the timing meant she wouldn't be eligible to compete for Australia at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
That didn't faze her.
"If I miss out on this one, we can always go to the next one, which is 2024, and that's our main goal," she said.
"So I told (coach) Paul, 'If I miss it to get a better future for me, I'll go ahead because this is a [once-in-a-lifetime] opportunity and I don't want to miss it for the world."
So she committed to the move, basing herself in Sydney, but also spending a lot of time with Coffa in Melbourne.
"I feel proud of myself for how far I've come because I'm pretty happy that I'm adapting to the lifestyle in Australia," she said.
Birmingham gold the goal
Cikamatana's biggest outing yet as an Australian will come at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.
And having reached the top four years ago, she's intent on repeating the dose.
"This has been the greatest opportunity I've ever had, and to me it's a dream come true," she said.
"To be representing Australia in green and gold is just beyond my imagination.
"We're going for gold, nothing else."
Cikamatana will compete in the women's 87kg category on Wednesday, August 3 AEST.
