Topic: News: Olympic Training Center May Land in Cedar Valley

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Olympic Training Center May Land in Cedar Valley
By kelley Beaton

WATERLOO — The trail to Olympic glory has long weaved its way through locales like Colorado Springs and Lake Placid.

In the not-so-distant future, the Cedar Valley could be added to that list.

Officials with the University of Northern Iowa say they’re close to finalizing plans to bring a Community Olympic Development Program training center to a yet-to-be-determined downtown Waterloo site.
   
The center would eventually be the training home of Olympic weight-lifting hopefuls as well as talented area adolescent athletes, while also serving as a laboratory for UNI students hoping to break into the ever-expanding field of strength and conditioning specialists.

It would be similar to the University of Northern Michigan’s United States Olympic Education Center, currently the only on-campus Olympic training center in the nation.

“When you put the Olympic rings up (on a building), I can’t think of a symbol that’s more internationally recognized,” said Robin Lund, an assistant professor of Physical Education at UNI who’s striving to make the endeavor a reality. “It’s a powerful symbol. We think that is just going to draw people to the center.”

Northern Iowa first-year head strength and conditioning coach Jed Smith, who first floated the idea of the Cedar Valley training center nearly two years ago, is close to ironing out a deal to bring former Chinese national weightlifting coach Ma “Mark” Jianping to Cedar Falls to head the program.

Should Jianping, a 1984 Olympian, make his way to the Cedar Valley, junior national champions are expected to follow, enrolling at UNI in an effort to train under the coach in hopes of someday becoming Olympians.

“This man is the best mind in weight-lifting in America,” said Smith of Jianping, a native of Smith of Jianping, a native of Beijing, China, who’s currently the head weight-lifting coach at Northern Michigan’s USOEC center.

“I think the future plans are excellent — I’m interested. I think it’s good for the U.S.’ weight-lifting future,” said Jianping, in town Tuesday while being wooed by the UNI contingent.

“I love it here,” added the coach. “I will try to work together with everyone here to build an elite program.”

Under the local group’s plan, UNI students, training to become strength and conditioning coaches, will be under the tutelage of Jianping and will recruit select area elementary-aged athletes that would be given the opportunity to train at the center — clearly an unprecedented scenario for the Cedar Valley.

The group came equipped with a shining example of what their program could potentially produce Tuesday, in the form of UNI freshman Jason Fiaco, a Pan American Games junior qualifier who can power clean 400 pounds.

“You learn a lot about pushing yourself, stuff that goes outside weight-lifting — every day life (stuff),” noted the 19-year-old —who, at a sturdy 6-foot-2 and 305 pounds is a big-man-on-campus in the truest sense of the term — singing the praises of youth weight-lifting.

Clearly, should the group’s plan come to fruition, it could have a potentially huge positive impact on area high school sports, considering the training center would be available to area 12-to-18-year olds.

All involved believe a CODP center could be a boon for UNI athletes across the board as well. The carved-out-granite frame of Fiaco, also a member of Mark Farley’s Panther football squad, suggests they might be right.

Smith said that if the training center were to get established enough, it eventually could add training for other Olympic sports, such as judo and even a Cedar Valley staple: wrestling.

The group is currently considering a pair of downtown Waterloo sites for the proposed center.

The plan might sound a bit pie-in-the-sky, but the UNI contingent seems hell-bent on bringing it to fruition.

A few crucial elements of the group’s itinerary must be checked off before any bulldozers break ground, however. Paperwork remains. Funds must be raised. Sponsors must be sought out.

“The bottom-line is, we’re going to need some support from the community to make this really go,” said Lund, who can be reached by interested investors at robin.lund@uni.edu. “We have some pieces in place — we have a half-million dollars worth of (weight-lifting) equipment that was donated from the U.S. Olympic training center that is waiting to be shipped down here.

“(But) there’s things that need to occur,” he added. “If the community will step up and support this thing, it will happen. If they don’t, it will probably die.”

The proposal should have a long shelf-life if the group can stir up even half as much local excitement as they possess.

“I believe in the deep part of my heart that we will do this n there’s no question,” said Chris Edginton, director of UNI’s Health, Physical Education and Leisure Services. “Because we have tremendous will at the University of Northern Iowa.

“You don’t build a basketball arena, you don’t build a Human Performance Center, you don’t do the kind of transformation that we’ve been involved in without having tremendous will,” Edginton added, speaking with the passion of a preacher.

“We’re going to bring that will to bear in this project. It’s going to happen.”