The Prez who lifted, the PM who bowled — when heads of state compete at CWG | Sports News
5 min readJul 25, 2026 09:44 PM IST Nauru and Niue are self-governing Pacific nations of a few thousand people, and both have had a head of government compete at the Commonwealth Games. Nauru’s Marcus Stephen did it years before he ever held office. Niue’s Dalton Tagelagi did it while he was already Prime Minister. Neither is on the floor at Glasgow this week. Marcus Stephen was Nauru’s lone athlete at the 1990 Auckland Games, a twenty-year-old ranked fourth or fifth in his weightlifting class, not expected to medal. Nauru had joined the Commonwealth Games Federation three days earlier. “When I won a gold and two silvers,” Stephen told Inside the Games, “it was a real shock.” Nauru declared a public holiday. The Nauru Weightlifting Federation had been founded the year before, mostly so he could compete internationally. Two years later, wanting to lift at Barcelona, Stephen discovered Nauru wasn’t yet an IOC member. “Little did they know,” he told RNZ, “that you have to be a member first.” Nauru’s leaders arranged him a Samoan …
