Riluwan Idris won the gold medal in the men’s para-powerlifting event at the ongoing 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland, on Friday night.
The 23-year-old took home the gold medal ahead of both Matthew Harding from England and Malaysia’s Nicodemus Manggoi Moses who won silver and bronze respectively.
Idris lifted 208kg on his second attempt to beat the competition, and he was the only para lifter to successfully lift above 200kg in the event. He lifted 200kg in his first attempt, and finished with 132.8 points to claim his first ever Commonwealth Games gold.
However, Idris narrowly missed on his attempt to break the Commonwealth Games record of 212kg with his third lift, settling for his gold medal.
He is also Nigeria’s first male athlete to win gold at the ongoing games, as the country added to earlier gold medals for record-breaking Folashade Oluwafemiayo and Esther Nworgu to cement its dominance of the para-powerlifting event at the Games with three gold and silver medals respectively.
Nigeria won three of the four gold medals up for grabs in the entire para-powerlifting program, improving on its two gold medals won at the Birmingham 2022 Games.
The total haul of six medals is also one better than Nigeria achieved in 2022 where it finished with five medals.
Nigeria finished Day One of the 2026 Commonwealth Games second on the medals table, behind Australia, which has six gold medals and 13 medals in total.
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