Topic: News: Jonathan Garcia Wins Silver at USA Nationals

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Palatka Lifter,  Jonathan Garcia, Wins Silver at USA Nationals
By Andy Hall

It’s not as if Jonathan Garcia was going against weightlifters twice his size last weekend — that’s not the way it works in his sport — but at least one competitor was twice his age.

Admittedly nervous before his first USA Weightlifting Nationals, Garcia steadied himself both mentally and on the platform, claiming a silver medal in the 56-kilogram (123.2-pound) weight class at Shreveport, La.

A state champion at 119 pounds this spring for Palatka High — where Garcia begins his senior year today — he snatched 77.5 kilos and cleaned 110 for a 187.5 total. He was third best in each individual lift and second overall with the guidance of Shelton Gilyard, a 1993 PHS grad now living in Tampa and an accomplished lifter himself.

“For him to win a silver in his first national is great,” said Gilyard, who has been working with Garcia about eight months. “He works hard, he listens to criticism about his technique and he’s able to make the appropriate adjustments.

“He trains very hard. Sometimes I have to get him to concentrate on technique and not beat up his body so much.”

The winner of the 56-kilo class, Chris LeRoux of Largo, turns 35 later this year and is a contemporary of Palatka’s most accomplished weightlifter, two-time Olympic competitor Bryan Jacob. LeRoux went 89-115—204 to win the overall gold with ease, but Garcia pushed him for gold in the clean and jerk.

Garcia, 17, missed 110 kilos on his first try, got it on the second and went for 115 on the third — which would have matched LeRoux but given Garcia the gold in that lift because he was lighter at weigh-in.

“Judges turned it down. It was a technical issue,” Gilyard said. “He didn’t have his feet parallel.”

As it was, the 110-pound clean was matched by still another Palatka lifter — 2005 PHS graduate Sean Hutchinson, who wound up with silver in the clean because he was lighter than Garcia. Hutchinson didn’t place in the overall standings because he scratched during the snatch.

The overall silver is something neither Garcia nor Gilyard could have imagined the night before the meet.

“Going out there, I was nervous. There were guys who have been in the sport way longer,” Garcia said. “Shelton helped me through it and told me to find the courage in myself and I found it.”

“The night before, he was a little bit down because he looked at the numbers and Chris LeRoux and some of the guys he was lifting against,” Gilyard said. “I had a really good pep talk with him. It worked out the way we had talked about.

“It was a big, big thing to perform like he did.”

Gilyard would have been in the field himself but for a dislocated shoulder — an injury that helped drive Garcia’s performance.

“He’s become my friend. He wasn’t able to compete himself, so that made me want to do a little more,” Garcia said.

“It was amazing to compete against the best lifters in the nation.”

Last weekend was just the second national competition for Hutchinson, who placed second in the USA Weightlifting American Open back in December.

“A short little competition history, but I’m getting there,” said Hutchinson, a St. Johns River Community College student who has been training under a DeLand-based coach, Charles Pavia, and plans to transfer to Louisiana State University-Shreveport, where he work out with the director of that school’s program, Dr. Kyle Pierce.

Hutchinson could have taken the overall silver from Garcia but for his trouble in the snatched, where he “bombed out” in an attempt at 82 kilograms.

“I’ve gotten it tons of times,” Hutchinson said. “I had a really bad warmup and just didn’t get it done.”

Two of three judges rejected Hutchinson’s first attempt to clean 110, but he was good on the second. Hutchinson missed on his third attempt, this time at 111 kilos, but as it turned out, it didn’t matter.

“I thought I needed it (for silver in the clean and jerk) because Jonathan was lighter than me but it turned out I was lighter,” said Hutchinson, who has cleaned as much as 120 kilos during training.