New Zealand’s medal haul at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games finally moved beyond the swimming pool overnight, and it took a weightlifter to do it. Cameron McTaggart lifted a total of 338kg to take silver in the men’s 88kg final, the ninth medal of the Games for the New Zealand team and the first that did not come from a swimmer.
McTaggart finished behind Malaysia’s Muhammad Hafizuddin Roslin, who totalled 345kg and set a Games record on his way to gold in his first Commonwealth Games. Scotland’s Angus Doig took bronze in front of a home crowd with 309kg, a full 29kg behind the New Zealander. The competition was held at the SEC Armadillo, the venue hosting all of the weightlifting and para powerlifting at these Games.
The margin at the top was slim by weightlifting standards. Seven kilograms across two lifts is the sort of gap that turns on a single missed attempt, and Hafizuddin’s clean and jerk was the lift that settled it. For McTaggart the more meaningful number was not the one that separated him from gold but the one that finally put him on a podium. This was his third Commonwealth Games and his first medal at one.
He was seventh in the 77kg division at the Gold Coast in 2018 and competed in the 81kg class at Birmingham in 2022 without troubling the medals. In between he made the New Zealand team for the Tokyo Olympics, lifting in the 81kg category. Glasgow is the first time the results have caught up with the length of the apprenticeship.
Moving up a division helped. McTaggart has spent most of his senior career at 81kg, the weight he lifted at both his previous Games and at the Olympics, and stepping up to 88kg for this cycle put him in a field where his strength profile suited the heavier bar. He has been a consistent presence on the regional circuit for years, winning gold in the 81kg class at the 2019 Pacific Games in Apia, taking bronze at the Commonwealth Championships the same year, and adding Oceania titles in 2019 and again earlier this year.
Weightlifting is not a large sport in New Zealand, and the McTaggart name is better known to most sports fans through his sister. Olivia McTaggart is a pole vaulter who represented New Zealand in athletics at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the same Games where her brother made his debut on the platform. Between them the siblings have now been to three Commonwealth Games apiece across two very different disciplines.
Cameron McTaggart was born in Southport in Queensland in 1997 and has represented New Zealand throughout his international career. At 28 he is one of the older members of a weightlifting squad that was deliberately built around a mix of experience and youth.
When the seven-strong weightlifting team was named on 22 June, Weightlifting New Zealand president Simon Kent said the group represented “the future and the present of New Zealand weightlifting” and that “we’re excited to see how they perform in a Games environment”. New Zealand Olympic Committee chief executive Nicki Nicol said at the same announcement that “we know Glasgow 2026 will be a special experience for this group”.
McTaggart was singled out at selection as the athlete bringing leadership and experience to the squad, having made two Games appearances before this one. The rest of the team is David Liti in the men’s over 110kg class, Marco Mollo at 79kg, Litia Nacagilevu in the women’s 86kg, Tu’i-Alofa Patolo in the women’s over 86kg, Olivia Selemaia at 69kg and Georgia Theron at 77kg. McTaggart’s silver is so far the only medal the group has produced.
Until the 88kg final, every New Zealand medal in Glasgow had been won in a pool. Lewis Clareburt has been the outstanding performer, defending his 200m butterfly title and then adding a second gold in the 400m individual medley, with a silver in the 200m individual medley alongside them. Erika Fairweather has three medals of her own, silvers in the 400m and 1500m freestyle and bronze in the 200m freestyle. Hazel Ouwehand took bronze in the 50m butterfly, Joshua Willmer picked up silver in the 100m breaststroke SB9, and the women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team of Caitlin Deans, Fairweather, Milana Tapper and Eve Thomas added another bronze.
That leaves New Zealand on 10 medals, two gold, five silver and three bronze, and sitting ninth on the table. Nine of those 10 came from swimmers. One came from a man standing under a loaded barbell in a converted concert hall on the Clyde.
There is still plenty of the programme to run. The Silver Ferns have stayed unbeaten in netball after a 58-50 win over Uganda, sprinter Zoe Hobbs has reached the 100m final, and the athletics and cycling programmes are where New Zealand has historically found its depth. The Games run through to the start of August.
You can read the reports from RNZ and Stuff, and the full weightlifting schedule and results are on the Glasgow 2026 site.
Where do you think New Zealand’s next medals will come from in Glasgow, and does weightlifting get enough attention here between Games? Leave a comment below and tell us what you think.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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