Litia Nacagilevu has big goals. Photo / Dean Purcell
On the morning of competition, Litia Nacagilevu opens her journal and writes down the weight she wants to lift that day. Then she pictures herself doing it.
But this is not just a pre-event ritual. Nacagilevu is constantly picturing victory. She writes down the weight she wants to lift on her mirror. She tells herself the numbers before she goes to sleep every night. She says it out loud, too.
“When I speak out what I want to do and then envision it as well, then there’s more chance of it actually happening if I actually believe it,” Nacagilevu tells the Herald.
So far, it’s worked. The 18-year-old is a junior weightlifter in the 86kg weight class and has represented New Zealand in four international weightlifting competitions in Fiji, Peru, India and two weeks ago in Norway – the best one yet. The teenager from Nelson finished ninth in the world.
Norway was also her first senior World Championships. She set New Zealand junior and senior records, as well as Oceania Junior and Commonwealth Junior records.
She says her personal best, lifting from the ground to straight above her head, is 110kg; up to 131kg for a “clean-and-jerk” lift.
Now Nacagilevu is preparing for the Oceania Championships in Samoa next April, the final and most important of three qualifying events for the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Scotland. As an Air New Zealand Dream Seats winner, she gets to choose a destination to travel to (Samoa) that will help towards her professional dreams (the Olympics) and the airline covers that cost.
The enjoyment of weightlifting started around age 11 and it started because of her dad, Joni Nacagilevu. He’s a former weightlifter and also her coach. By the time Nacagilevu was in Year 10, she told her dad she “really wanted to do this”.
“So we knew she was serious then,” Joni Nacagilevu tells the Herald. “When she starts something, she wants to be the best at it ... She’s really goal-driven.”
And disciplined.
Nacagilevu, the eldest of six sisters, hits the gym at the Nelson Weightlifting Club with her dad at 5am. Then she goes to school – it’s her last year of it – while her dad goes to work. At 5.30pm, she returns to the gym for a second training session with another coach.
For a sport that is mostly solitary and mostly mental, self-belief and confidence become critical. After meeting Solfrid Koanda, Norway’s first female Olympic weightlifting champion, Nacagilevu sent her dad a text: “I’m going to be the next Solfrid”.
Nacagilevu says she’s allowed to have wild nights, but she chooses to say no.
“I can have all the fun I want after [I finish] school, but just for now I need to ... focus,” she says.
That’s not to say she never sees her friends, however. She’s learned the hard way what happens when she doesn’t.
For Years 11 and 12, Nacagilevu opted for online schooling through Te Kura, which gave her the flexibility for training sessions, but she would go the whole day without seeing her peers.
“It actually got really lonely,” she says. “So when I came back [to school this year], I’ve noticed how important it is to make sure you keep your social side.”
Nacagilevu is a confident teen. Competition is where she thrives, she says, adding that she lifts better when she is around people. When she feels nervous, she uses it to her strength.
“I’m always nervous, but I have to fully trust myself and believe in myself to get through it,” she says.
When things don’t go to plan, Nacagilevu tells herself a two-word phrase.
“I‘ve always taught myself to come back and think ‘next job’ because whatever’s happened just then, I can’t change it ... you have to move on,” she explains.
The Dream Seats prize also included exclusive mentoring from national sporting legend Dame Valerie Adams.
Speaking to the Herald at the AUT Millennium Gym in Auckland, the pair are meeting for the first time but the chemistry between them is hilariously obvious. At one point, Adams picks Nacagilevu up like a pillow. Nacagilevu doesn’t get to return the favour, though she attests she could have easily done so.
“There’s something about her that makes you feel like you’ve just known her for a really long time,” Nacagilevu says.
The energy between the two is comfortable and warm, but also very serious. Being strong used to be about survival for Adams.
“Now it means, actually having the strength to speak up when I need to speak up, be present when I need to be present, be a pillar for the rest of my Polynesian brothers and sisters,” she says.
“Life is tough for a lot of our youngsters. The world is hard, it’s expensive, and there’s a lot of pressure on social media. So we just have to find ways to continue to encourage and empower, especially our youth coming.”
The celebrated shotput athlete’s most valuable advice during her first mentoring session with Nacagilevu comes from sharing her own experiences and the main “dos and don’ts” of being an athlete.
“She was saying like, ‘it’s okay to kick people off the bus and it’s okay to replace people on the bus’. That’s like something that really like stuck with me,” Nacagilevu recalls.
“Going into these big comps and at the level I’m at now ... I need to think about who’s on my side and who’s helping me get to these competitions or who’s, like, driving me.”
They also discussed in the mentoring session other critical and unavoidable aspects of being an athlete and a woman: the menstrual cycle. Nacagilevu says at the start of her weightlifting journey, she would feel her training sessions or competitions would go poorly because she was menstruating.
“But I learned that during that time is when your body is actually the strongest ... you have to tell yourself that you’re strong and, like no matter what’s going on with your body right now, you can push through it.
“Because no one else can push you as much as you push yourself.”
Is she New Zealand’s strongest teen? Nacagilevu doesn’t bat an eyelid at the question.
“Yeah, I think I am,” she says. “I don’t care if there’s anyone else.”
With the same glint of invincibility in her eyes, she adds later that at every competition, she gets asked if she feels nervous. Her response is always the same.
“No. I’m ready,” she says.
“That’s all I can say.”
Varsha Anjali is a journalist in the lifestyle team at the Herald. Based in Auckland, she covers culture, travel and more.