Young Weightlifter Tenishia Thornton has been awarded with the Atlas Youth Athlete of the month Award for November 2020. This was the second time that the 15 year old athlete managed to win this award after she had claimed the March 2020 accolade.

Thornton in November added a piece of history for Maltese Weightlifting as she became the first Maltese Athlete to win world medals in an IWF event. The Maltese weightlifter competed in the 49kg category where she finished with claiming a silver medal in the snatch category with a lift of 71kg and an overall bronze medal in the final classification after she had lifted an 84kg lift in the clean and jerk.

Due to the Covid-19 situation the Youth World Cup of Weightlifting was held online with the participation of 17 athletes. In the competition Thornton successfully lifted all her snatches attempts at 68kg, 70kg and 71kg respectively. In the clean and jerk she started off with a successful 80kg lift after which she moved to an 84kg attempt which she missed narrowly. She eventually secured this lift in her third and last attempt to finish off with an overall total of 155kg.

The final classification saw Arriaga Velez from Mexico claiming gold with a total of 159kg followed by silver medalist Alvarez Loez from Columbia with a 156kg total.

This was the 11th award being awarded to a local youth athlete in the series of this joint initiative by Atlas Insurance and the Malta Sports Journalists Association to recognize the efforts by young sports athletes and thus encouraging them to continue to train harder in their respective sports disciplines.

The previous winners were:

Haley Bugeja (Football) October 2020, Kayden Lagana (Tenpin Bowling) September 2020, Sacha Gatt (Swimming) August 2020, Richard Shulthies (Sailing) July 2020, Matthew Magro (Tenpin bowling) June 2020, Thomas Borg (Para swimming) May 2020, Jake Vella (Swimming) April 2020, Tenishia Thornton (Weightlifting) March 2020, Dejan Grech (Pool) February 2020, and Rachela Pace (Athletics) January 2020.

Each month, the Malta Sports Journalists Association and Atlas Insurance encourage athletes under the age of 21 and their respective associations and federations to submit nominations for this award. Nominations can be submitted via email on [email protected].

The trophy for the November 2020 Atlas Youth Athlete of the month and the sports apparel voucher combined with this award were presented to Tenishia Thornton by David Cassar Manager – Business Development & Marketing at Atlas Insurance. Sandro Micallef and Lorraine Cunnigham President and General Secretary respectively of the Malta Sports Journalists Association were also in attendance.