Name: Rebeka Koha
D.O.B: 19 May 1998
Nationality: Latvian
Bodyweight Category: 59kg
Major Medals (Total): 18 (youth, junior and senior)
Personal Bests:
- Snatch: 103kg
- Clean and Jerk: 124kg
- Total: 227kg
Rebeka Koha at the 2018 IWF World Championships
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CAREER
1. Snatch or clean & jerk?
Clean & Jerk.
2. What do you like to listen to when training?
I don’t listen to music when I’m in training.
3. How many hours a week do you spend in the gym?
18 hours.
4. What’s your favourite aspect of training?
My favourite aspect of training is when my coach explains clean and jerk techniques to me.
5. Which aspect of training do you hate the most?
Learning snatch technique!
6. If there was one thing you could improve about your technique, what would it be?
I would improve my clean technique.
7. What is your most memorable lift?
My 120kg clean & jerk lift at last year’s Junior World Championships. Because of that lift, I won my first world champion title and it looked so awesome – two 25kg plates on each side of the barbell!
8. What achievements will allow you to retire happy?
If I said all of them, I would be lying. Sometimes I know that I did less than I could, but I’m grateful for these failures, because that’s how I get to the podium’s highest step. I hope that I have learned from the failures and now will be only the best.
9. Knowing what you know now, what one thing would you change in your first training routines?
Actually, I would take something from my first training routines and bring it back. Now I’m lazier than before, because I’m always tired of the hard work we do. At the start I was more hard working because it was only the beginning. Now that I know how hard it is, it’s harder for me to withstand all of this work.
10. Who is the greatest weightlifter of all time?
I will not say that there is one who is better than another. In every timeline there are athletes who are at the top: Yury Zakharevich, Ronny Weller, Halil Mutlu, “The Pocket Hercules”, Pyrros Dimas, Viktor Scerbatih, Lasha Talakhadze and many others, but with time they will change. In my opinion there is not one best, there are many.
11. What is the most important thing needed to be an Olympic weightlifter?
Be brave and believe in yourself.
Rebeka at the 2018 Junior World Weightlifting Championships
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PERSONAL
1. Describe yourself in 3 words.
Strong. Funny. Brave.
2. What other sports do you like to play?
Basketball, tennis and boxing.
3. What is your favourite meal?
Beef fillet.
4. If you could only eat one type of cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be?
European cuisine.
5. Describe your perfect day off.
I would like to sleep for as long as I want and then time with my family and friends!
6. Which person, dead or alive, would you like to have a conversation with?
Conor McGregor.
7. Name one skill you would like to learn.
I would like to learn to juggle.
8. Which is the one place you would like to visit?
Hawaii
9. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Don’t listen to other opinions and do what you want to do. If you decide to do something – do it, because we should all live our lives how WE want to not how OTHERS want us to.
See Rebeka’s results from the 2018 World Championships in Ashgabat here.