Topic: News: 2008 USA Olympic Trials

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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USA Olympic Weightlifting Team to be Chosen at Georgia Tech May 16-17
Twelve Georgia Athletes Among Weightlifters Vying to Represent the United States in Beijing Games   

Atlanta, GA – April 22, 2008 – USA Weightlifting today announced that the 2008 Olympic Weightlifting Trials will be held Friday, May 16 and Saturday, May 17 at the Ferst Center for the Arts, 349 Ferst Drive Northwest, on the Georgia Tech campus.

From this competition, male and female team members will qualify for the U.S. Olympic Weightlifting team that will compete in the Beijing Olympics Games in August. To qualify for the trial, weightlifters must be ranked in the overall top 30 men or women in the country.

The three-round elimination trials are scheduled for Friday from 11 am to 3 pm (first session) and 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm. (second session), and Saturday from noon to 4 pm (third session). The Saturday session is scheduled to be recorded by NBC for the Olympic qualifying show. Tickets for the event are $10 (plus a $1.25 service charge) and can be purchased at www.olympictrials2008.com/tickets.htm or at the door; weekend packages that include all three events are also available.

“This promises to be a very exciting and competitive field that is represented by several accomplished, local weightlifters,” said Dean Alford, chairman of the Olympic Weightlifting Trials. “We appreciate the strong support and great facilities that Georgia Tech has provided the participating athletes and their families for this event and look forward to crowning the athletes that will represent our country in Beijing.”

The Olympic Weightlifting Trials are sponsored by Team Georgia, a state weightlifting group dedicated to promoting competitive weightlifting and implementing the sport into the daily routines of Georgia athletes and coaches. The twelve Georgia athletes scheduled to participate in the trials include:

Women

·        Kelly Polly, Atlanta

·        Amanda Hubbard, Cumming

·        Shannon Sheesley, East Point

·        Sarah Davis, Rincon

·        Cheryl Haworth, Savannah

·        Rachel Hearn, Savannah

·        Jenna Bussard, Savannah

 
Men

·        Chandler Alford, Atlanta

·        Henry Brower, Bloomingdale

·        Caleb William, Duluth

·        Joshua Squyres, Savannah

·        Travis Cooper, Tyrone
 

For more information, visit www.olympictrials2008.com.


CONTACT:

Paula Ransom, USA Olympic Trials, 678-977-0934, paularansom@mindspring.com

Cory Stewart, Cookerly Public Relations, 404-816-2037, cory@cookerly.com

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifter Competes for Berth in Beijing
By Vahe Gregorian

Mike Wittmer had no visions of glory when he coaxed his 11-year-old son, Jeff, into the basement of their Hazelwood home to learn weightlifting technique.

He never considered that Jeff might have a special aptitude and attitude, even if he seemed to have an instant knack.

"But it's your kid, and you always think your kid is great at everything," said Mike Wittmer, a former competitive lifter. "So I asked some old training partners, 'Tell me what you think.' They said, 'He's got it.' "

[attachimg=1]
May 15, 2008--St. Louis native Jeff Wittmer (Hazelwood West) has a brief workout at
St. John's Health Tracks in Springfield before the Olympic trials in Atlanta. Photo by Dianna Russell.

Mike never considered that 12 years later the sport could be a focus of his son's life. After all, few can make a living at weightlifting, and the obscure sport doesn't lead to fame or endorsements.

He never considered that it could become a passion that would be his son's passport to such exotic locales as Belarus, Brazil, the Czech Republic, the Dominican Republic, France, Peru and Turkey.

"I never really thought that far ahead," said Wittmer, a chiropractor in Hazelwood. "I just wanted to teach him how to train properly and safely so he could maybe have a little bit of an advantage in soccer and baseball."

Now, Beijing will be next on the list if Wittmer emerges Saturday with one of Team USA's three spots in the U.S. Olympic weightlifting trials in Atlanta. Wittmer enters the meet ranked sixth in the arcane process but in range to qualify.

DRIVEN TO SUCCEED

In one sense, Mike Wittmer's plan backfired. Jeff abandoned soccer and baseball as he became consumed with weightlifting.

And why not? By Jeff's reckoning, he won the first 50 events he participated in, losing for the first time at age 15 in a national competition in Tacoma, Wash.

His love of the sport flourished through high school at Hazelwood West.

Since varsity weightlifting programs are scarce, he competed for Wesley's Weightlifters in St. Joseph, Mo., racking up six junior national championships as a teen.

For all the coaching he'd get elsewhere, the constants were his father and the makeshift workout area in their half-finished basement. He cherished the time with his father, being able to follow in his path. And he relished having such a blunt way to measure improvement and that it "all comes down to you" — the glory and the failures.

"He was so driven. It was almost like every night, 'I want to go now, I want to go now,' " said his mother, Cindy. "Somebody would call and say, 'Can Jeff come to the phone?'

" 'No, he's working out.'

"His friends would call and say, 'There's a party Friday night,' and Jeff would say, 'Oh, no, I've got a big workout Saturday. I'm staying in.' Never did he waver."

A LONG ROAD

As natural as Wittmer's ascension has been, it wasn't without trials, the most frustrating of which might have seemed the least likely.

Upon graduating from Hazelwood West in 2003, he accepted a scholarship to the U.S. Olympic training center in Colorado Springs, Colo. He had trained there every summer since he was 14 and expected to bask in the atmosphere.

But little went as anticipated, including not working out with the coach he expected to train him, feeling forced into what he considered odd training hours and attempts to change his technique, and turnover in the USA Weightlifting hierarchy mid-year.

"It was really just a mess," said Wittmer, who felt lonely and out of place. "A lot of time just kind of staring out your window."

One of the highlights was having two-time Olympian Shane Hamman as a roommate. Hamman was good to Wittmer, so much so that his parents still rave about him, but Hamman also was 31 years old to their son's 18.

Jeff "had wanted to go away to college," Cindy Wittmer said, "but that was not a college experience, per se."

So Wittmer came home at the end of the school year to gather himself, but he was encumbered for months by tendinitis in his knee. He spent the year at St. Charles Community College while rehabilitating mentally and physically with his father.

"It definitely helped that dad is a chiropractor and getting treatment nonstop," he said.

As he weighed his options to balance his life with an education while training, Missouri State became appealing through word of mouth from friends and his relationship with Scott Johnson, a coach he had known since he was 13 who had become strength and conditioning coach at St. John's Sports Medicine-HealthTracks in Springfield.

By the next summer, 2006, Wittmer was healthy, confident and soaring to new plateaus. He won the 2006 and 2007 U.S. national championships in his weight class, 94 kg. And the 5-foot-8, 207-pounder had an international breakthrough last summer when he finished fifth in the Pan Am Games with personal bests of 158 kilos (348.3 pounds) in the snatch and 197 (434.3) in the clean and jerk for a total of 355.

After that performance in Brazil, then-USA Weightlifting executive director Rodger DeGarmo approached Wittmer, moved by his gutty perseverance with torn-up, bleeding hands, and told him the Olympics were there for him.

"I still haven't forgotten that," said Wittmer, who bemoaned the 38-year-old DeGarmo's sudden death weeks later. "That's when my eyes really opened up (to the Olympics)."

Well beyond the scope of what his father could have foreseen 12 years ago.

"Sometimes," Mike Wittmer said, "this is pretty hard for me to believe."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Haworth all but forgotten?
By Adam Van Brimmer

Not for much longer as Savannah native tries to make third Olympic team

Cheryl Haworth still gets looks from fellow pedestrians as she walks Savannah's streets.

She senses something different these days, though, and it's not just because the tourist numbers continue to grow. The instant recognition she once enjoyed is gone. Now the gazes say, "Why does she look so familiar?"

The puzzlement doesn't make her uncomfortable. She strides as confidently today as ever. She still smiles at those who make eye contact.

She doesn't feel the need to stop people and say, "Hi, I'm Cheryl Haworth, Olympic weightlifter" or parade around with the bronze medal she won in the 2000 Games around her neck.

Haworth is home and happy, and if she's now Savannah's forgotten sweetheart, so be it.

"There's been a distinct evolution from my younger days," Haworth said. "That's part of growing up."

Haworth's about to remind the local population she's still Savannah's sports hero. The United States Olympic Team Trials start today in Atlanta, and Haworth can earn a trip to the Beijing Games with good lifts Saturday.

This August's Olympics would be her third. But these Games will be unlike the others.

Into the spotlight

Haworth once showed America there's nothing wrong with being big, strong and female.

The International Olympic Committee made women's weightlifting a medal sport a decade ago. The sport would debut in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

As the Games neared, word spread that Team USA's top medal hope was a 300-pound teenager. The media was smitten. Accustomed to covering pixy gymnasts and lean sprinters during the Summer Olympics, the press made Haworth a celebrity overnight.

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Olympic weightlifting trial competitor Cheryl Haworth at
Saigon Restaurant on Thursday morning. Photo by Eliot VanOtteren.

She appeared on television morning shows.

She did a shoot with acclaimed photographer Annie Liebovitz.

She posed for a book photo hefting a tree trunk over her head.

Then she won bronze. She was 17 years old, her best years still ahead.

Haworth remained in the spotlight for the four years between the Sydney Games and those in Athens. She suffered a career-threatening elbow injury during the span only to come back quickly, making her an even bigger story.

But Haworth aggravated the elbow injury and "tweaked" her other elbow on her opening lift in Athens. She felt so good and so strong when she picked up the bar she "got really excited and overpulled it." She felt both elbows give.

"I'm confident I would have won," she said. "The first lift felt so easy."

She finished the competition, but with weakened arms, she placed sixth. Memories of that day still make her mad. She labels the elbow injury "an excuse" for her disappointing finish, a claim her sister and confidant, Beth, refutes.

"I don't know too many people who could come back off a reconstructive elbow surgery in a year and go to the Olympics and finish sixth," she said. "What is she talking about? That was career ending."

Regardless of the circumstances, all the attention went away.

Fading into the background

Haworth's remained in the news locally since the last Olympics, just not always for winning weightlifting competitions.

She staged another injury comeback a year after the Athens games, breaking her own records in the 2005 Pan American Games.

From there, her name started showing up in other parts of the newspaper.

She made the police blotter in March 2006 with an arrest on drunken driving charges. A few months later, she made the list of SCAD graduates. She also got a mention among the property transfers when she sold her house.

Then, she made it back on the sports page when she announced her decision to move to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. and work out with the U.S. team.

Her split with Team Savannah and longtime mentor Michael Cohen became public while she was in Colorado. Haworth's coach, Don McCauley, left Team Savannah in 2006 and formed Coastal Empire Weightlifting.

She struggled with homesickness in Colorado. Then she hurt her back last summer. Being so late in the Olympic cycle, she decided to stop training and give her body time to heal.

And also to move home and start working with McCauley again once healthy.

"Life is all about perseverance," she said. "It's all about picking up the pieces."

That's been some heavy lifting, even for Haworth. The time off because of injury has left her behind in training. She's prepared for the trials, but "minimally. Her training schedule has her peaking for the Olympics, a risky strategy considering she must out-lift two women this weekend just to make the team.

But she's confident she will claim a spot and make a medal run in Beijing.

"For me it's not even about going to the Olympics anymore, it's about going and beating some people," Haworth said. "There comes a point where you have to do something with it, get something more out of it. And I'm at that point."


Cheryl Haworth

Age: 25

Ranking: No. 4 (first in 165 pound-plus weight class)

Goal: Qualify for Beijing Olympics, which would be her third appearance.

Previous trials: 2000, 2004


Henry Brower

Age: 26

Ranking: No. 8 (first in 151.8-pound weight class)

Goal: Match personal records of 286 pounds in snatch, 358.6 in clean and jerk.

Previous trials: 2004


Rachel Hearn

Age: 27

Ranking: No. 15 (third in 165-pound weight class)

Trials goal: Make all six lifts and boost national ranking into top 10.

Previous trials: 2000, 2004


Sarah Davis

Age: 24

Ranking: No. 17 (third in 127.6-pound weight class)

Goal: Break her personal records in the snatch clean and jerk.

Previous trials: 2004


Jenna Bussard

Age: 21

Ranking: No. 21 (fifth in 165-pound-and up weight class)

Goal: To qualify for the World University Games.

Previous trials: 2004


Joshua Squyres

Age: 28

Ranking: No. 21 (third in 206.8-pound weight class)

Goal: Beat personal records in snatch and clean and jerk.

Previous trials: None (qualified in 2004, didn't compete)

Chasing a dream

Six Savannahians will participate in this weekend's United States Olympic Weightlifting Trials on the Georgia Tech campus.

Only one, two-time Olympian Cheryl Haworth, has a good chance to qualify for the 2008 Games.

Savannah's other five trials participants go to Atlanta with goals that don't involve a trip to Beijing this August.

Here's a look at Savannah's best:


Henry Brower

Background: Started lifting in South Effingham program; joined Team Savannah in 2000. Won his fifth national title earlier this year.

Fun 411: Brower spent last week taking final exams at Armstrong Atlantic State. He said he typically falls ill the week after finals or a weightlifting competition "because I'm so stressed out." So with finals and the Olympic trials back to back, he fully expects to spend next week in bed.


Rachel Hearn

Background: Joined Team Savannah back when the operation was based out of the Herty Elementary School cafeteria; moved to the U.S. Olympic Training Center at age 16 and earned her college degree through the Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University

Fun 411: Hearn's grandfather, who got her involved in weightlifting, will attend the trials.


Sarah Davis

Background: Started lifting in the South Effingham program. Joined Team Savannah in 2001. Won four junior national championships and is a four-time member of the U.S. World University Games team.

Fun 411: Davis admits she was intimidated when she first came to train with Team Savannah, a petite 17-year-old lifting alongside Olympians Haworth and Cara Heads.


Jenna Bussard

Background: Started lifting with her South Carolina high school football team. Began working out with Team Savannah in 2001, driving 2-1/2 hours three days a week to train. Moved to Savannah three years ago.

Fun 411: Bussard is pursuing a welding degree from Savannah Tech. "I did some of that in high school and thought it would be pretty cool to make a career out of that."


Joshua Squyres

Background: Started lifting in 2002 at Anderson-Cohen Center and won his weight class in a Tennessee competition two months later; followed his coach to Atlanta only to move back to Savannah and now trains on his own.

Fun 411: Squyres played one year of football at Georgia Southern before leaving school for financial reasons. He took up Olympic-style lifting because he'd always been naturally strong: He first benched 400 pounds at age 16.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Ex-Spruce Creek Stars Turnbull + Fides Head to Olympic Trials
By Michael Lewis

Samantha Turnbull is looking forward to seeing some old friends this week.

Girls she lived with, trained with and ate dinner with while at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

Except this is no reminiscing weekend. Turnbull will be seeing her old pals in Atlanta at the U.S. Olympic Weightlifting Trails, where she and fellow former Spruce Creek standout Jessica Fides will battle long odds to try to make the team going to Beijing.

Turnbull enters the two-day competition today ranked 25th, while Fides, making her second Trials appearance, is ranked 20th.

Only the top three U.S. lifters qualify for the team.

"I'm more excited about the experience than nervous, because I don't feel like there's a lot of pressure on me to make the team," Turnbull said. "I just want to go there and do my best and not worry about what everyone else does."

Fides said she had much the same attitude about the Trials. Coming off an 11th-place finish at the Trials in 2004, she said she's mostly hoping to get her personal record.

She also said the Trials is a little different experience than most meets, since competitors in different weight classes all compete at once.

"I think it'll be a great meet, and another good experience for me," Fides said.

Turnbull, who has said all along she's realistically hoping to make the 2012 Olympics in London, said coach Thomas Bennett has been a big help in keeping her motivated the last few months.

"He just keeps me confident and reminds me that this is what I love to do, and not to stress out about it," Turnbull said.

Both Turnbull and Fides will be competing during today's sessions. Turnbull will lift between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., while Fides will compete between 5:30 and 9:30 p.m.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Sandy Creek Grad Travis Cooper Competes for Spot in 2008 Olympics
By Kevin Wandra

Numerous athletes throughout Fayette County have made a name for themselves in sports such as football, baseball, basketball and soccer, among many others.

Travis Cooper is standing out in a sport that hasn’t received much recognition in the county, weightlifting.

Cooper, a 2006 graduate of Sandy Creek and a current student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, is competing in the Olympic Weightlifting Trials today in the Ferst Center auditorium at Georgia Tech University to determine who earns spots in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.

Cooper’s interest in weight training began at Sandy Creek, where he played football and was a four-year starter on the school’s varsity wrestling team.

“Training with the football team at Sandy Creek got me interested in getting stronger,” Cooper said. “I became interested in strength movements, but first was interested in powerlifting.”

Cooper one day decided to check out Velocity Sports Performance, a sports performance training center in Peachtree City, where he met CJ Stockel, an employee at Velocity.

The two struck up a conversation, and, based on Cooper’s body type, Stockel was intrigued; he convinced Cooper to come back to Velocity and work out with him in Olympic weightlifting.

Starting in Nov. 2005, Cooper trained with Stockel four days a week, two and a half hours a day for one year, focusing on three weight training exercises: the squat, snatch and clean and jerk.

“Coach Stockel was real enthusiastic,” Cooper said. “He was a good person to train under.”

Cooper competed in his first Olympic weightlifting event only two months later at a local competition in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (There are no qualifying procedures for a local meet in Olympic weightlifting; the only requirement was signing up as a USA Weightlifting member, which Cooper did.)

“I wanted to see what Olympic weightlifting was all about,” Cooper said.

Cooper showed no signs of inexperience competing in the 77-kilogram weight class, lifting a combined total of 210 kilograms — Olympic weightlifting consists of only two lifts, the clean and jerk and the snatch — to qualify for the Junior Nationals (20-and-under nationals).

“After that first meet, I realized I wanted to stick with [Olympic weightlifting],” Cooper said. “It gave me a chance to see what I could do. I was proud of myself.”

Then Cooper stood out at the Junior Nationals, his first national competition, in 2005 in St. Paul, Minnesota, placing fifth in the 77-kilogram weight class.

Cooper’s weight lifting prowess was on display again that summer, when he took first place in the 17-and-under Nationals.

“When I won the 17-and-under nationals, I started getting recognized,” Cooper said.

One person who recognized Cooper’s significant achievement was Paul Fleschler, the resident coach at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with whom Cooper kept in touch.

Meanwhile, after a year of working out at Velocity, Stockel got a new job in Nov. 2006, becoming the strength and training coach at Flowery Branch High School. Cooper and Stockel then started training together in Stockel’s garage in Newnan for another six months until he graduated high school.

Training in a garage was an adjustment for Cooper.

“It was hard going from training in a premier facility to a garage,” Cooper said. “It was a culture shock but motivating at the same time.”

Once he graduated high school, Cooper continued his weight training at Georgia Tech, where he went to school in the fall. While working out at Georgia Tech, Cooper met Chandler Alford, with whom he sparked a friendship.

Alford will be joining Cooper in the Olympic Trials this weekend.

While training at Georgia Tech, Cooper continued continued to compete in events across the nation.

In the summer of 2007, Fleschler gave Cooper his big break, inviting Cooper to train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado for a training special for two months. A training special means an athlete is a non-resident and will train for a short period of time, but the athlete shows the potential to someday become a resident.

“I was very happy when Coach Fleschler invited me to train in Colorado because when you live there, you concentrate more on training; you make it more of your priority,” Cooper said. “It was another accomplishment I was proud of.”

Once his training special concluded, Fleschler was so impressed with Cooper’s work ethic and improvement during the training special that he asked Cooper to become a resident.

When Cooper became a resident, Fleschler and Cooper mutually decided that Cooper should put on weight and move up to the 85-kilogram weight class.

“It was hard for me to cut weight,” Cooper said. “Paul and I decided that it would be best for me to move up a weight class.”

Competing in a heavier weight class, Cooper took second place with a 310 kilogram total in the first Olympic Trials qualifier in Dec. 2007.

Two months later, Cooper finished first in the Junior Nationals, held in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with a 310 kilogram total.

Cooper then participated in another high-profile event, the Senior Nationals at the Arnold Sports Festival March 1, 2008, in Columbus, Ohio, which was the second qualifier for the Olympic Trials.

The pressure of lifting in such a prestigious event did not faze Cooper, who took second place with a 313 kilogram total. His exceptional performance secured his spot on the Junior (20-and-under) World Team, which will compete in Cali, Columbia, June 17.

“Making the Junior World Team was probably one of my biggest accomplishments,” Cooper said. “It felt good to finally accomplish that.”

Now Cooper has his sights set on a bigger prize — a spot on the U.S Olympic Weightlifting Team.

Cooper is one of 12 Georgia athletes who have qualified for the Olympic Trials, and he will compete against 48 other top weightlifters from across the country for one of three spots on the U.S. Olympic Weightlifting Team.

When asked if he feels he has a legitimate shot at making the team, Cooper said, “Possibly. I just plan on trying to lift as much weight as possible.”

If Cooper does not finish in the top three, but he finishes among the top eight lifters, he will earn a spot on the World Cup team.

Cooper has been training diligently for the Olympic Trials at the Olympic Training Center, where his workouts include two two-hour lifting sessions Monday, Wednesday and Friday and one two-hour lifting session Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

“It’s strenuous,” Cooper said of his workouts. “Your body adapts to it, though. I have made a lot of strength gains, and I have adapted real well to the program.”

There is an old adage that hard work pays off. Cooper is hoping that his hard work leads to a trip to the Olympics.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Jackie Berube Eyeing Olympics
By Dennis Grall

ESCANABA — The waiting is almost over.

All Jackie Berube has to do now is make her lifts to secure a spot on the U.S. Olympic team for a trip to China.

The Olympic weightlifting trials are this weekend in Atlanta, with Berube competing at noon Saturday in the Georgia Tech auditorium. She’s currently fourth, and four lifters advance to Beijing.

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Weightlifter Jackie Berube of Escanaba gets some
practice time in while preparing for a berth in the coming
Summer Olympics. Photo by Dennis Grall

“I feel great, better than I’ve ever felt,” she said in a telephone chat. “I’m confident. I’m relaxed. I have a good feeling.”

She has been practicing at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and left today for Atlanta.

“I’m just fine-tuning and practicing, nothing crazy. I’m staying within what I need to do to make the team.”

The event will be shown on at noon May 25 on MSNBC.

Since she’s already fourth, Berube said “I have to be fairly conservative. I need to improve my total, but I need every kilo.

“Compared to some other people, I have a lot to lose, while other people have nothing to lose.

“I’d like to get a little cushion.”

She’s hoping to move up to the No. 3 spot for that cushion. Melanie Roach, a mother of three who trains in Washington, is third and in the 53k division.

Berube, 36, competes in the 58k division and is the American record holder in the snatch (90 kilograms, 198 pounds), clean & jerk (113 kg - 248.6 pounds) and total (200 kg - 440 pounds).

She won the gold medal at the USA Weightlifting National Championships earlier this year with a total lift of 194kg. This is her third appearance at the Olympic Trials (she did not qualify in 2000 or 2004).

 “I really want to go, but it will not be the end of my life,” she said of her Olympic bid.

However, she quickly added “I really just want to go to the Olympics. That is it. It all comes down to that.”

She also indicated retirement is not in the immediate future.

“I’m not retiring, at least 2009, I would compete. I will see how I feel,” she said.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Raising the bar: CJ Stockel helps athletes compete at highest level
By Jonathan Zopf

Flowery Branch High’s strength and conditioning coach C.J. Stockel knows that athletes are made in the weightroom.

Time in the weightroom improves strength, speed and agility, which translates to better play on the field and, for some, a possible chance to play a sport in college or, in rare instances, professionally.

But for some athletes, the work in the weightroom might turn into something else: Olympic gold.

Starting today, the country’s top-30 male and top-30 female weightlifters will gather at Georgia Tech in Atlanta to compete in the 2008 Olympic Trials for a chance to represent the U.S. in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

The competition consists of three sessions, with the No. 21-30-ranked participants competing in the first session this morning, the No. 11-20-ranked participants competing in the second session tonight and the top-10 weightlifters in the country competing Saturday afternoon. The top three males and top four females will make this year’s Olympic weightlifting team.

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Flowery Branch High strength and conditioning coach C.J. Stockel will serve as the meet director for this weekend’s Weightlifting Olympic Trials. Stockel is the current coach of two lifters that will be competing.

Watching closely will be Stockel, who is involved with the Olympic Trials for the first time in his career and who has ties to one-tenth of the 60 competitors at this weekend’s event.

“I have six kids that I started in this sport and that’s pretty cool,” said Stockel, who is also the head coach of Team Georgia Weightlifting which, along with Georgia Tech, is sponsoring this weekend’s Olympic Trials. “If you would have told me that when I started doing this with Henry Brower and Sarah Davis back in 1997 I wouldn’t have believed it.”

While he started coaching weightlifters in 1997, Stockel’s involvement in the art of the sport goes back 22 years, when he participated in a week long certification course at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“My first initial thought was to learn how to lift in order to teach kids how to lift,” he said. “Not to be weightlifters, but to be better football players, track athletes and baseball players.”

Along the way he started training athletes how to lift weights for competitions and, in doing so, trained two of his former students (Shannon Sheesly and Natalie Friend) and two of his current students (Travis Cooper and Chandler Alford) to the Olympic Trials.

“I first met Shannon Sheesly when she was in the seventh grade,” Stockel said. “She weighed only 77 pounds and I told her mom that she was going to be a national champion one day.”

Since then, Sheesly has won three national championships and is currently ranked No. 28 in the country for women weightlifters. Stockel knows that the odds of Sheesly, Friend (No. 18) and Davis (No. 17) making the Olympic team is slim, especially since the competition at the top of the women’s rankings is so tough.

“The top 10 or 11 are the ones with the shots to go to China,” Stockel said. “The other ones have just earned the right to go to the trials.”

Three of those top 11 women and 12 total competitors are residents of Georgia, including No. 11-ranked female Kelly Polly, who has known Stockel for five years and has competed in meets held at Flowery Branch.

“I think there are 12 girls that could qualify for those four spots,” Polly said. “I would love to qualify, who wouldn’t be excited about that?

“But I won’t be disappointed if I don’t make the top four, unless I had a bad meet.”

According to Stockel, Polly’s teammate, No. 6-ranked Amanda Hubbard from Cumming, has “an outside shot” at cracking the top four and earning a trip to Beijing.

The competition among the males will be equally as difficult according to Stockel, who despite being the coach of two participants, will step back from coaching and focus on his responsibility as this weekend’s meet director.

“I’m glad I’m running the meet because it takes my mind off everything else that can be running in my head,” he said.

Like the performances of Alford and Cooper, who are ranked No. 17 and No. 15 respectively.

“Really we’re just focused on setting personal records for those two,” Stockel said. “Our goal is to be ranked in the top 10 at the end of the trials.”

While not watching the performances of his two students, Stockel’s eyes will be on fifth-ranked Casey Burgener.

“My heart goes out for Casey Burgener,” Stockel said. “I’ve known him since he was knee high to a curb.”

Regardless of how Burgener, Alford, Polly or any of the other participants that have crossed paths with Stockel perform, the coach is excited to have an opportunity to be a part of an event of this magnitude.

“It’s a great experience for the competitors and it’s a tremendous experience for myself,” he said. “But then again, this isn’t about me or any other coach, it’s about the kids that we coach and helping change their lives in a positive way.”

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifters Ready: 2008 Team Trials
By Cecil Bleiker

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The top 30 men and top 30 women are putting the finishing touches on their final preparations for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Weightlifting which is scheduled to begin Friday, May 16 and conclude on Saturday, May 17 in Atlanta, Ga.  The 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Weightlifting will be held at the Ferst Center for the Arts on the campus of Georgia Tech University.  Competition will be divided into three sessions for both women and men (A, B and C), with ten athletes per gender lifting in each session.  The C and B sessions are scheduled to take place on Friday, May 16.  The women’s and men’s A sessions will take place on Saturday, May 17.

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Athletes lifting in each session was determined by pre Olympic Trials ranking events which included the 2007 World Championships, the 2007 American Open Weightlifting Championships, the 2008 National Junior Weightlifting Championships, the 2008 National Championships and the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships (for men only).  The top ten ranked women and men in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials rankings will lift in the A session on Saturday, May 17.  Athletes ranked 11-20 will compete in the B session, while those ranked 21-30 will compete in the C session.

Melanie Roach(Bonney Lake, Wash.) enters the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials as the top ranked female weightlifter.  Roach had thought her shot at Olympic glory had passed her by when her dream of making the 2000 U.S. Olympic Team was derailed by a back injury in 1999.  Following that injury, Roach retired from the sport, got married (to Dan Roach), started a business and had three children.  In 2005, the weightlifting and Olympic bug bit Roach again and she re-entered the sport and by 2007 had regained top form.

The 2000 Olympic bronze medalist and two-time Olympian (2000 and 2004) Cheryl Haworth (Savannah, Ga.) will be attempting to make her third consecutive U.S. Olympic Team, but finds herself in the unfamiliar position of being ranked fourth among the USA women.  Natalie Woolfolk (Arnold, Md./Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Carissa Gump (Essex Junction, Vt./Colorado Springs, Colo.) enter the Olympic Trials ranked second and third respectively.  They are followed closely by Jackie Berube (Escanaba, Mich./Colorado Springs, Colo.), Amanda Hubbard (Atlanta, Ga./Colorado Springs, Colo.), 2000 U.S. Olympian Cara Heads (Costa Mesa, Calif./Shreveport, La.), Emmy Vargas (Panorama City, Calif./Colorado Springs, Colo.), Stacy Suyama (Torrance, Calif.) and Doreen Fullhart (Lisco, Neb./Colorado Springs, Colo.).

Based on his performance at the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships in Callao, Peru Kendrick Farris (Shreveport, La.) enters the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials as the top ranked male weightlifter.  Farris is followed closely by 2004 U.S. Olympian Chad Vaughn (Konawa, Okla./Norman, Okla.) who enters the Olympic Trials as the second ranked weightlifter.  Matt Bruce (Baton Rouge, La.), Norik Vardanian (Colorado Springs, Colo.) and Casey Burgener (Bonsall, Calif./Colorado Springs, Colo.) are nipping at their hills.  Burgener is hoping to make the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team alongside his fiancé Natalie Woolfolk.  Lance Frye (Moorestown, N.J.), Jeff Wittmer (Florissant, Mo.), Henry Brower (Chattanooga, Tenn./Colorado Springs, Colo.), Henry Woodard II and Zach Krych (Colorado Springs, Colo.) round out the top ten on the men’s side.

For the complete listing of athletes competing in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Weightlifting please visit www.usaweightlifting.org.

Ranking of athletes is determined by top percentage of weight lifted as compared to body weight.  For the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, the United States women qualified for the maximum of four competition slots based on their combined eighth place team placement at the 2006 and 2007 World Weightlifting Championships.  The USA women had originally placed ninth, but their team ranking improved by one position following the recalculation of team points after doping positives were discovered for athletes on teams that had originally placed above the United States.  For the USA men, knowing the number of qualified Olympic slots has been a roller-coaster ride.  At the conclusion of the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, September 17-26, 2007, the U.S. Men sat in position to secure three Olympic slots with a 27th place combined finish, making the U.S. the final country to qualify slots for the Olympic Games.  As was the case with the women, teams above the U.S. had athletes that received doping positives.  Despite no one on the U.S. team testing positive, the U.S. men dropped one position in the overall team rankings when team totals were recalculated, thus losing the three Olympic slots they thought they had earned.  The shift in order, due to doping positives by athletes in teams that finished above Team USA, caused a re-shuffling of team points and the final mathematical breakdown moved Chinese Taipei above the United States.  The U.S. men were then forced to compete in the final Olympic qualifying event, the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships, March 17-22 in Callao, Peru, where the eight member U.S. team had to finish ranked first or second as a team to qualify for two Olympic slots.  With a strong team performance the U.S. men finished first and qualified for two Olympic slots.  Following the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships, the U.S. men prepared for their attempt to finish in the top two at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials. 

The spirits of the athletes attempting to make the 2008 U.S. Olympic Men’s Team received a tremendous boost on Tuesday, May 13 when they learned that the International Weightlifting Federation had met via teleconference with IWF Vice President and former U.S. Olympic Team Coach Dragomir Cioroslan and offered the United States a third men’s Olympic slot.  USA Weightlifting is awaiting the final official written invitation for the third men’s Olympic slot from the IWF, but is confident that the paperwork will be in place in time to be able to select three male Olympians at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Weightlifting on Saturday, May 17.

"This is great news for USA Weightlifting," said Dennis Snethen, USA Weightlifting Executive Director.  "We’ve got three golden tickets to the greatest show ever, the 2008 Olympic Games.  The bottom-line is that we’ve had a clean record internationally because of the help of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in our domestic meets.  We have not had an international positive in WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) events and I think that was a big factor for the IWF to extend this invitation to us.  We also owe a great deal to the diplomatic efforts of our international relations representative Dragomir Cioroslan.  Because of this invitation by the IWF this is going to change someone’s life forever."

For the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, all 30 athletes will be competing against each other and not just those athletes in their specific weight class.  This means that to four best women’s lifters and the three best male lifters will make the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team regardless of weight class.  As has been the case for past Olympic Games, more than one individual per weight class could make the team.  The final ranking will be determined by the highest percentage of weight lifted compared to body weight.  The 2008 USA Weightlifting National Championships and the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships (for men only) will serve as the secondary Olympic Team Qualifying event, meaning that athletes competing in the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials may elect to use their totals from either the 2007 National Championships or the 2008 Pan American Championships (for men only) if they are higher than those they post at the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials.  With that being said, the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials is a must-compete event meaning that athletes qualified for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials must compete in the Olympic Trials in order to have the opportunity to use the secondary event total if necessary.  If an athlete is not able to compete in the Olympic Trials, they must be granted a waiver of petition for exceptional circumstances in order to use their secondary event total.

The anticipated schedule for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Weightlifting is as follows:

Friday, May 16

11:00 a.m. –1:00 p.m. Women’s C Session 1:00 p.m. –3:00 p.m. Men’s C Session 5:30 p.m. –7:30 p.m. Women’s B Session 7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Men’s B Session

Saturday, May 17

12:00 noon –2:00 p.m. Women’s A Session 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Men’s A Session