Morea Baru to contest tonight in the 61kg category

Morea Baru in action during the Rio Games (Getty Images)

PNG weightlifting representative Morea Baru will compete in the men’s 61kg category tonight [11pm PNG time] as he makes his third Olympic Games appearance.

Baru becomes Team PNG’s fifth athlete to contest in Paris Olympics and will be up against 11 other athletes from Kiribati, USA, Italy, China, Thailand, Vietnam amongst other in the weightlifting competition.

Baru has had an accomplished journey in weightlifting where he finished in top 10 at the last two Olympics in Brazil (Rio, 2016) and Japan [Tokyo, 2021].

The Commonwealth Games silver medalist looks certain to improve his ranking on the Olympic Games with prolific preparations in lead up to the 2024 event in Paris.

PNG swimmer Georgia-Leigh Vele in all smiles after her heat (Team PNG)

Meanwhile, PNG female swimming champion Georgia-Leigh Vele finished fourth in her heat, slightly missing out on finals.

As one of the debutants for Team PNG at the Paris2024 Olympics, Vele powered through but fell short to qualify for the semi-finals in the women’s 50m freestyle with a time of 27.61 seconds.

Moreover, in athletics, sprinter Leonie Beu showed courage amongst top athletes in the World in a packed State de France, France largest stadium.

Sprinter Leonie Beu in taking on the Paris Olympic tracks in round 1 of athletics (Team PNG)

The 25-year-old from Morobe and Oro province competed in Heat 4 of the preliminary round, finishing behind Sao Tome and Principe’s Gorete Semedo [11.44s] and Bolivia’s Guadalupe Torrez [11.6s].

Beu recorded a Personal Best time of 11.63s, finishing third in the preliminary round where she qualified for round 1 with 16 other athletes.

Advancing into Round 1, Beu competed in Heat 5 for a spot in the semifinals against 71 other elite runners.

Beu who is currently ranked 561 in the world lined up against Dina Asher-Smith of Great Britain [world ranked #6] and Ewa Swoboda of Poland [world ranked #5].

After a false start by Brazilian athlete Carolina Azevedo, the race went ahead with Beu recording a slower reaction time of 0.252s than her previous race [0.182s].

Finishing 8th with a time of 11.73sec, Beu was unable to progress to the finals but said she was happy with her results.

“I feel so good about the preliminary round. Standing at the start line for round 1, I could feel that the race was going to be a fast race. Ewa Swoboda was running next to me in lane 2 and she is very fast,” Beu said. I have a moto: “Nothing secret, Just Hard Work.”