SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Despite finishing a disappointing sixth in the final of the men’s 81kg weightlifting competition on Sunday night at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games here, Jamaican competitor Amrie Mears is still pleased with himself and is now determined to achieve great things in the future for the country.

Mears, who is based in England, bowed out of the competition after amassing a combined total of 260kg in the match. The event was won by Colombia’s Gustava Maldonado who had a combined total of 328kg.

The weightlifting competition was contested at the CAC Games for the first time this year, and Mears told the Jamaica Observer he was happy to be one of the first Jamaicans to represent the country in the sport even though the result was not what he had wanted.

“I am feeling pretty good because my performance was really good and so I am pleased with it,” said Mears.

“Now it is about getting the ball rolling and preparing for the World Championships because we are now 10 weeks away, and so now it is just preparing and continuing to build and hopefully getting a better performance and continue to grow,” he said.

Meers added: “The plan now is to go back to the drawing [board] and start working and train towards my next event in ten weeks’ time. My plan is to qualify for the Olympic Games next year in Paris and so I have done two of the Olympics qualifying events so far and the IAAF World Championships is a compulsory event for the Olympic qualification and that is in Saudi Arabia in September, and I have to do that competition.”

The 29-year-old Mears shared that Jamaica has a number of talented weightlifters, and he believes with support from corporate Jamaica the nation can become a very dominant regional force in the sport.

“We have been putting in a lot of work and I have been putting in a lot of work and we are continuously growing the sport — and hopefully with sponsorship we can put some more effort and time into the sport,” he said.

“We are a couple years behind some of the Central American countries in terms of development and growth but, hopefully, by the next Commonwealth Games we will be hoping to medal. That is somewhere that I want to medal so I am putting in the work and, hopefully, with the support of Jamaica we will be able to compete full-time as athletes.”