Brian Duffy

Cantabrian Brian Duffy, born in 1947, had one shot at the Commonwealth Games and made the most of it, winning a bronze medal in Christchurch in 1974 in the featherweight division of the weightlifting.

Duffy was part of a particularly strong New Zealand weightlifting squad (seven of the nine lifters won medals in Christchurch) that came together for a training camp in Auckland before the Games. Training alongside them were the Australian team and several Pacific Islands weightlifters. It made for a wonderful atmosphere, with the lifters’ natural competitive instincts pushing them all to bigger weights while their opponents looked on.

In Christchurch, Duffy lifted 102.5kg in the snatch, which left him tied for the lead with Australians George Vasiliades (who’d finished 6th at the 1972 Olympics) and Gerald Hay at the halfway point of the competition.

But while Duffy could manage just 130kg in the jerk, Hay lifted 132.5kg and Vasiliades 135kg to give him a Commonwealth Games record total of 237.5kg. Vasiliades was a real character, and on his last desperate lift, he urged himself on by shouting, “Up, up, up!” until he succeeded with the lift.

Duffy won five national weightlifting titles – the bantamweight (56kg) from 1968-70, and the featherweight in 1971 and 1973.

Living near Nelson, Duffy remained active and competitive long after his weightlifting days. In 2016, he made headlines by becoming the oldest person, at 69, to compete in the multisport Godzone Adventure race, which involved 400km of kayaking, trekking and mountainbiking through the Tasman district’s hinterland over a period of six days.