Topic: News: Scelza, 11, Wins Silver Medal in Junior Olympics

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Scelza, 11, Wins Silver Medal in Junior Olympics

Sam Scelza is not like most boys his age.

The 11-year-old Springfield Township resident is unusually articulate and well-mannered. Furthermore, he speaks like an adult while still maintaining a child's natural sweetness. Oh yeah, Sam Scelza also recently won a silver medal in weightlifting at the Junior Olympics in Virginia Beach.

But for anyone who knows the Scelza family the last fact should not come as a surprise.

"My husband and I are body builders," noted, Suzanne Scelza, whose son Sam was competing in his first competition ever. "The last time I competed was in 2005. It was in the Philadelphia Classic (where she won a first place prize)."

Although he grew up with bodybuilders for parents, Sam really started taking an interest in weightlifting during a family trip to the Arnold (Schwarzenegger) Classic (an annual three-day expo and competition) in Columbus, Ohio. It was there where he saw kids his own age competing in weightlifting.

"We pushed him into it! But he had always been talking about weightlifting," noted Scelza's mother, who just wanted her son to be involved in sports. "At one point he was ready to call it quits, but we pushed him back into it."

Scelza knew her son had just hit a wall and would regret it if he had gave up so soon.

"I was getting a bit tired when I started (last September), but then I got stronger and it was easier," said Sam Suzanne Scelza is hardly a pushy "stage mother." In fact, she doesn't even train her son. Instead, he works out with Victor Gallego, who has a strong National reputation, at the East Coast Gold Weightlifting Club in Moorestown, New Jersey.

"The guy who trains him (Gallego) is fantastic," added Scelza. "The only exercise he does is squats."

According to Sam he gets his weightlifting power from those squats. However he does shoulder presses, dead lifts, the clean and jerk and the snatch in practices as well.

"I've had good form since I started," noted Sam, a naturally gifted athlete. "I'm very flexible."

Sam started taking weightlifting very seriously when he learned about the Junior Olympics from his coach a few months ago. He had to qualify first however and he didn't actually know he had made the Junior Olympics until 2 weeks before the competition. Still, competing in the 11 and Under Division, Scelza lifted 20 kilos in the snatch and 26 kilos in the clean and jerk, to win a beautiful silver heavy silver medal.

"That was so cool. The boy that beat him had been lifting for two years longer than Sam had," noted Suzanne Scelza.

"I didn't have much of a problem with the snatch because I already knew I could lift the weight (20 kilos)," added Sam Scelza, who only got the slightest bit nervous, when he was pushed to lift the most weight of his young life in the clean and jerk.

"Sam wasn't nervous. That's not his personality," said Suzanne Scelza, whose son has a very calm demeanor and doesn't seem like one to get rattled or show anger.

"The school (Springfield Township Elementary) gives an award for sportsmanship, and Sam has won it twice."

Perhaps Sam has gained his maturity by watching his mom compete in competitions. In fact, Suzanne Scelza, who is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs just 130 pounds with less than 10 percent body fat, will compete in the Junior National Bodybuilding Championships and Ms. Figure USA in two weeks in Philadelphia. While she works out with her husband, who is also in tremendous shape, Mark Scelza chooses not to compete in bodybuilding competitions. Yet he follows his family's athletic careers very closely.

"I compete in the figure class organization of NABBA (the National Amateur Body Building Association). I do model turns in a high heels in a little tiny bathing suit and posing," said Suzanne Scelza, who believes that holding a pose and smiling without shaking is the most difficult aspect of the competition. She keeps herself in shape by eating chicken up to three times a day. While Suzanne's daughters, Claire and Juliet, are interested but not heavily involved in body building, they too, stay in shape by competing in sports, including gymnastics. So it's a very active family.

A one-time soccer and baseball standout, Sam Scelza is now putting all of his athletic concentration on becoming the best weightlifter he can be. His next competition will be at his own gym in Moorestown in November.

"Hopefully, I can get the gold," said Sam Scelza, who already has the right attitude to remain a winner for the rest of his life.