Marcus Stephen

Marcus Stephen represented Nauru at two Olympic Games before embarking on a political career that included a four-year stint as President.

He burst onto the weightlifting scene as a fresh-faced 20 year old at the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, winning gold in the men's 60kg snatch and silver medals in the clean and jerk and total.

Two years later he made his Olympic debut in Barcelona, but it wasn't for Nauru.

The OWF Electoral Congress was opened by Laisenia Bale Tuitubou, Fiji’s Minister for Youth and Sports, and saw Stephen elected until 2020 having first been appointed in 2008.                  

The 46-year-old former weightlifter was voted in as the President of the Nauru Olympic Committee (NOC) in 2009 to replace Vinson Detenamo, who held the position since the body was first recognised by the International Olympic Committee in 1994.

The NOC had been largely set-up in 1993 so that Stephen could compete in the Olympics.