Marcus Stephen - Sporting Career

Sporting Career

He initially played Australian rules football for the local team the Aces, but opted to pursue the sport of weightlifting. In 1989 the Nauru Weightlifting Federation (NWF) was founded, primarily to give Stephen, the sole top-class weightlifter in Nauru at the time, the opportunity to compete internationally.

In 1992 he took part in his first Olympic Games in Barcelona. Since Nauru had no Olympic Committee at the time, he successfully applied for Samoan citizenship and was allowed to compete for Samoa. In 1993 the committee was founded and Stephen was able to represent Nauru in the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

When the Olympic torch was carried to Sydney, Stephen had the honour of being a torch bearer during its stopover in Nauru.

It was at the Commonwealth Games where most of his successes came: In the 1990 Commonwealth Games he surprisingly won a gold medal in the Snatch in the 60 kg class. In the 1994 Commonwealth Games he won three gold medals in the 59 kg class and in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in the 62 kg class he collected three more golds. In his last Games, the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester he won three silvers in the 62 kg class.

At the 1999 World Championship in Athens he was runner up in the clean and jerk in the 62 kg class.

In 2005 he was elected member of the International Weightlifting Federation Hall of Fame.

In March 2008, it was reported that Stephen had been appointed to the presidency of the Oceania Weightlifting Federation, the Pacific region's official continental weightlifting body.

In January 2009, he was elected president of the Nauru National Olympic Committee, defeating Vinson Detenamo, who had been president of the committee since its recognition by the International Olympic Committee in 1994.