Siti Nafisatul Hariroh successfully won three gold medals in the National Weightlifting Championship PON Qualification in Bandung, West Java. She got those three medals in the snatch (70kg), clean & jerk (85kg), and 155kg categories. She was classified in the women’s 45kg class.

“My biggest challenge was the senior athlete from Jakarta,” Nafis revealed.

Despite facing a senior athlete, her persistence did not waver. Nafis kept doing her best to be the champion. She has been interested in weight-lifting ever since she was 13. It was initially only an activity out of boredom, but Nafis, born in Blora, realized that she had the talent to become a weightlifting athlete. To this day, Nafis, a Management Student at Universitas Dian Nuswantoro (Udinus), has successfully amassed more than 10 medals.  

In 2022, Nafis managed to win a bronze medal in Sea Games Vietnam. In the same year, she also brought a gold medal in the Turkey Islamic Solidarity Games. In the following year, a gold medal and two silver ones were claimed by Nafis in the Bahrain Asian Weightlifting Championship.

Additionally, she gathered 3 bronze medals in the 2023 Asian Weightlifting Championship in Korea. Recently, three gold medals in the Bandung National Weightlifting Championship (pra-Pon) were achieved by Nafis.

Nafis uttered that she usually trained in the morning and afternoon to maximize her preparation and stamina when competing. “Weightlifting is an intriguing sports branch as it differs from many other ones,” she continued.

Nafis said that weightlifting was not well-known in her environment. Therefore, she wished for a weightlifting student activity unit to be added to the campus so that this unique sports branch could be widely spread among the students.

“To all my friends, keep motivating yourselves. Keep doing what you are doing now and be a successful generation,” she concluded.

Next September, Nafis, born in 2001, will go to Saudi Arabia proudly representing Indonesia in a global weightlifting championship. (Humas Udinus/Ika. Foto: Dok. Pribadi)