There was no qualification to the medal bracket for Mercy Obiero but as she had hoped she had a chance to scale up her performance as she lifted a personal best of 181kg from Group B in the women’s 69kg competition Wednesday.
Obiero, 34, managed to snatch 72 in her first attempt, failed her second at 76kg before improving her personal best with the third lift at 76kg, way above her previous snatch of 70 at the ExCel centre.
She also made good use of her Olympic debut in the clean and jerk with a massive 14kg improvement. She easily jerked 100kg in her first of the day before signing off her showing in London at 105kg after failure at 111kg.
But her total which ranked her 13th overall out of the 15 competitos was way off Jong Sim’s the gold medalist from North Korea evident of the huge gap between the top world weightlifters and those from Africa.
Romanian Daniela Cocos total of 256 earned her silver as Maryna Shikervankova from Belarus taking bronze.
On Thursday, the focus will be on the Dunford siblings who will be looking to qualify in their respective events.
David will be looking to bounce back in the men’s 50m freestyle after a slowed heat locked him out of the 100m semi finals.
Jason hopes to embark on a new a path in the men’s 100m butterfly with an Olympic medal hanging around his neck. He will be looking to qualify from heat five which also includes Polish Konrad Czerniak(51.15),the silver medalist from last year’s worlds.
In Beijing four years ago he was in scintillating form as he broke an Olympic record in his 51.14 swim in the semi finals and endured every swimmers nightmare when he missed out on a medal at the World championships in his fourth place in 51.59.
“I feel in much better shape and more confident going into my second Olympics,’ “ said the Commonwealth games champion in 50m fly.
“Am definitely in good shape not only to qualify but even to make it to the podium.”
Jason holds the sixth fastest time of all time from the 2009 World event where he returned 50.78 behind American sensational and most decorated olympian Michael Phelps of 49.82 also from 2009.
If all goes to plan the Dunfords’ may just splash away to history at the aquatics’ center.
Evelyn Watta in London
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