Former Port Elizabeth weightlifter Mona Pretorius will make her return to the platform this week when she competes at the African Weightlifting Championships in Egypt.
This will be Pretorius’ first competition since picking up an injury at the World Championships in Turkmenistan in November in 2018.
The competition, which got underway earlier this week, and runs until the end of April, will see the Commonwealth Games bronze medallist looking to get the necessary points to aid on her road to Olympic Games qualification.
“I am feeling very excited ahead of this competition, it is also the first time I am getting back onto the platform after injuring my knee at the World Championships in November last year.
“I started with rehab as soon as I returned to Romania. My training block has been great and things are looking up so I am excited to see what this year has in store for me,” she said.
Pretorius ruptured her quadricep tendon during the world championships and has been on the comeback trail ever since.
Despite not getting the result she had hoped for at that event, she still managed to complete her lifts and achieve a 185kg total which ensured that she got points towards her Olympic qualification.
She began the training block for this competition in January, where she worked on strengthening other muscles while nursing her quad injury.
“Together with my coach in Romania, we worked very hard on a variety of other exercises which gave me time to heal sufficiently while at the same time helping me to build strength, not only for this competition, but for others later on this year.
Pretorius needs to compete in at least six international competitions throughout the year, if she is to be considered for selection to the national side travelling to Tokyo next year.
“Being my first competition for the year, I will look to use this to see where I am in terms of readiness. I want to try and hit the small goals I have set and see where I can improve looking ahead to the competition in the United Kingdom,” she added.
Pretorius said the UK competition will take place in June and how she performs in the Cairo event will go a long way to showing her what she needs to work on.
“For this competition, I just want to make sure that all the training we have done up to this point has worked, and then build from there.
“I want to make sure I can hit all six of my lifts in the competition as well as getting a good total because that will give me a lot of confidence heading into my next training block ahead of the June event.
“I will work super hard on game day to ensure that I hit all the targets my coach and I have set out,” she added.