Topic: News: 2009 Pan Am and USAW Senior Nationals Championships

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Weightlifting officials laud Chicago for event organization
By Philip Hersh

So far, the visitors are impressed with the way Chicago is handling the Pan American Weighlifting Championships.

``I'm very pleased,'' Luis Zambrano, president of the Ecuador Weightlifting Federation and treasurer of the Pan American Weightlifting Federation, said Thursday.   ``We believed Chicago had the capacity to organize this event very well, and what we are seeing is an excellent organization.''

This is believed to be the largest Pan Am weightlifting championships ever in both numbers of countries (21) and athletes (267).

``And it is the best Pan American Championships ever in terms of organization,'' Zambrano said.

Antonio Urso of Italy, president of the European Weightlifting Federation, seconded that opinion.

``The organization is top-flight, which doesn't surprise me,'' Urso said.  ``Surely, this will be good for Chicago's (2016) Olympic bid.''

Why?  One clear reason is the nice setup for the athletes at these 3-in-1 championships, where Pan Am, U.S. and Ibero-American titles are being contested simultaneously.

The University of Illinois-Chicago Forum has turned out to be a perfect venue for the event.

Suyama Officials at event organizer World Sport Chicago, the child of Chicago's 2016 bid, first thought about putting the competition at the proposed 2016 weightlifting venue -- Arie Crown Theater.  But someone wisely realized that however many fans did show up, free tickets notwithstanding, would be lost in the 4,250-seat theater and chose the UIC Forum instead because it could be subdivided into smaller halls.  There are some 900 seats in the competition space.

On the other side of the wall behind the lifting platform is a large training space with huge video screens allowing the athletes and coaches to watch the competition -- and follow it statistically -- as they warm up.
The locker rooms are designed for the concert performers who often play this venue -- giving the athletes a taste of being a rock n' roll star.

And a U.S. athlete who figured he would be using a floor to rest in the two hours between weigh-in and competition (the usual situation at national meets) found a room full of massage tables for that purpose.
Athletes needing to sweat off some weight -- and check how much they have lost -- have access to saunas and scales at the Hilton Chicago, where they are staying; Export Fitness, a sponsor; and at UIC.
Some visiting athletes are reciprocating that hospitality by going to Chicago elementary schools Friday.  Team members from Brazil and Puerto Rico will visit Anderson, which has a Spanish magnet program, while Venezuela and Colombia are scheduled for Burr, which has a Japanese program.  The visits are meant to be cultural exchanges as much as introductions to weightlifting.

Even though no International Olympic Committee members are in Chicago for these championships, it can only be good for the city's Olympic bid if everything goes well -- as it has on Day One of Four.

``This can be a big help for the candidature,'' Zambrano said.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Guide wins women's 48-kilogram class at nationals

CHICAGO (AP) Gina Guide won gold in her division at the U.S. National Weightlifting Championships on Thursday, her first competition since being injured in a car accident more than a year ago.

Guide emerged from group B of the women's 48-kilogram (105-pound) weight class to win with a total score of 127 on the first day of the four-day event.

The 32-year-old Chicago native was 6-for-6 in lifts, reaching 55 kilograms (121 pounds) in the snatch event and 72 kilograms (158 pounds) in the clean-and-jerk. Guide beat Stacy Suyama and Kelly Rexroad, who both competed in Group A and did not qualify for a medal.

''I would have been fine if I had just gotten my third-place medal like I should have,'' Guide said. ''But it was exciting to go 6-for-6. A lot of people don't do that. Ever. So it was really exciting, being a comeback meet for me.''

The U.S. nationals coincide with the Ibero-American and Pan-American Championships at the University of Illinois-Chicago Forum.

Colombian Sergio Rada Rodriguez won gold with a combined score of 255 in the men's 56 kilogram (123-pound) class of the Pan-American finals, winning both the snatch and clean-and-jerk events.

The 25-year-old finished 12th in the 2008 Beijing Olympics at the same weight class. He beat out a six-man field Thursday.

''I had been lifting well prior to the event which gave me the confidence to do well,'' Rada Rodriguez said. ''I just wanted to represent my country with a lot of dignity and pride and I'm just happy to be here and do my country proud.''

Mexico's Carolina Valencia Hernandez won the women's 48-kilogram class in the Pan-Americans, followed by Katheryn Mercado Villareal of Colombia.

Joshua Barnett won the gold in the U.S. portion of the men's 56-kilogram class. He successfully completed all three of his snatch lifts, including as personal best at 83 kilogram (183 pounds), but went just 1-for-3 in the clean-and-jerk.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Former Bishop Kenny student heading to weightlifting nationals
Michael Soha is a former Bishop Kenny High linebacker.
By Hays Carlyon

Michael Soha's goal is to make the Summer Olympics in 2016. He'll try to take another step toward that goal today.

Soha, who played linebacker for four years at Bishop Kenny, has excelled at weightlifting while attending LSU in Shreveport. The senior won his division at 169 pounds at the National Collegiate Championships in Shreveport in April.

Now, he'll compete on a bigger stage. Soha has been training for the U.S. Weightlifting Championships at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The event, which takes place at 7 p.m. today, is run by USA Weightlifting.

"It's another meet," Soha said. "That's how I try to look at it. I think I can lift more than what I did at the collegiate championship, but my main goal in the national meet is to hit all six lifts."

Soha took first at the collegiate meet, snatching 270 pounds and recording a 336-pound clean-and-jerk for a 606-pound total.

After the meet, the 23-year-old lifter will continue his career with big goals in mind. Those goals require intense focus.

Soha, who began competitive weightlifting after high school, estimates he trains five days a week for three hours at a time.

"After I graduate, I want to do something with law enforcement," Soha said. "Other than that, I'll be training trying to make the 2016 Olympic team."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Amanda Hubbard wins 3 golds in weightlifting

CHICAGO (AP) — Amanda Hubbard won three gold medals Thursday on the second day of the 2009 U.S. National Weightlifting Championships.

Hubbard of Cumming, Ga., missed her first attempt on both the snatch and clean and jerk events in the 128-pound class, but succeeded in each of her next two tries.

Her lifts of 191 pounds in the snatch and 233 pounds in the clean and jerk were both good for gold, giving her a score of 193 overall.

She beat out silver medalist Hilary Katzenmeier (183 overall) and Stephanie Spencer (143), who took bronze.

Hubbard said she knew exactly what mistakes she had made on her first lifts of the day.

"Yeah, after it was too late to fix it," Hubbard said with a laugh. "I was actually nervous leading up to those. In the snatch I caught the first one out in front, and the first clean I caught back on my heels. I was able to adjust and come back and everything was OK."

The three Americans have been in competition with each other before, and they embraced on top of the winners stand at the University of Illinois-Chicago Forum.

The competition was a bit fiercer in the Pan American Championships — being held simultaneously — at the same weight class.

Geralee Vega Morales of Puerto Rico lifted 251 pounds in the clean and jerk to move into first place overall, but Ecuadorian Maria Escobar Guerrero lifted 253 in her final attempt to take the gold.

Both women finished with a final score of 203, but Escobar Guerrero weighed in at about a pound lighter and was therefore declared the winner.

"All you have to do is have it in your mind to do it and be confident in yourself," Escobar Guerrero said through a translator. "I'm very excited, very proud to represent my whole country because its a big honor for one person to do that."

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Farris takes home three gold medals at weightlifting championships

CHICAGO -- Kendrick Farris swept his weight class and earned three gold medals Saturday in the U.S. National Weightlifting Championships.

Farris was the top American at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, where he finished eighth overall in the 187-pound weight class. But the Shreveport, La., lifter injured his left shoulder on his last lift in Beijing and has been working toward a comeback ever since.

During his first lift in the clean and jerk Saturday, the third day of competition, Farris couldn't lift the weight over his head and appeared to have hurt himself as he came off the platform.

"I actually didn't have a focal point and I don't think I put enough on the lift," the 22-year-old Farris said. "I was just kind of out there and lost. I got one of the coaches to go up [in the stands] and hold a sheet of paper up so I had something to focus on. It worked for me."

Indeed it did, and Farris left no doubt that he's back in full swing after lifting 330 pounds in the snatch event and 413 pounds in the clean and jerk to win both events at the University of Illinois-Chicago Forum.

Farris finished with 338 points, one more than Matthew Bruce. Bruce, from Baton Rouge, La., earned three silver medals and was the only competitor in the 15-man field to go 6-for-6 in lifts.

"To come here and compete with Kendrick was a good experience for me," Bruce said. "I'm happy because I went 6-for-6. I can't rest with that, though. This just shows me how much improvement I can make in this weight class."

Cuba's Elio Guerra Aranoz won the Pan-American Championship with a score of 350, edging Colombians Carlos Andica Andica (348) and Ferney Manzano (346).

Ingrid Marcum of Elmhurst won a pair of gold medals in the women' 165-pound weight class. She lifted 200 pounds in the snatch to win the event and scored a total 194 points to take the U.S. overall title. Sarah Bertram, from Eugene, Ore., swept the women's 152-pound weight class and picked up three gold medals.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Sarah Robles becomes a heavyweight in weightlifting
By Philip Hersh

When Sarah Robles transferred from Alabama to Arizona State to be a redshirt thrower on the track team, she found herself looking for a place to lift in the week before the school's athletic facilities reopened.

Robles looked on USA Weightlifting's Web site to find a club in the area and wound up with Joe Micela at his Performance One Advanced Sports Training in Mesa, Ariz.

It was a Thursday afternoon in early January 2008 when she met Micela, who suggested Robles try a local weightlifting competition four days later. She did well enough to qualify for the junior national championships.

"That blew me away," Micela said.

That was the beginning of the end for her throwing and the start of a weightlifting career in which Robles' progress has been so fast she has legitimate aspirations at making the 2012 Olympic team in the super-heavyweight category.

That is the weight class in which former child prodigy lifter Cheryl Haworth, currently recovering from an injury, has been in a class by herself among U.S. women for a decade. Haworth, 26, won an Olympic bronze medal in 2000 and followed it with sixth places in 2004 and 2008.

"If Sarah had started when she was 12 or 14, she could be Cheryl -- or close to it," Micela said.

Barely six months after the local competition, Robles had finished second in the World Junior Championships and decided to leave Arizona State to train and study at the U.S. Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University.

Now the 20-year-old from San Jacinto, Calif., wants to move again, and she hopes her results Sunday in the Pan American Weightlifting Championships will earn her a place at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

In her first senior international competition, Robles took sixth after setting personal bests in the snatch (214 pounds), clean-and-jerk (284) and total (498). That made her U.S. champion but left Robles short of her goal.

"I held myself to bring home a medal for my country, so I didn't do my job," Robles said.

No U.S. women won medals but two men, Norik Vardanian of Moorpark, Calif., (207-pound class) and Patrick Judge of Sarasota, Fla., (super-heavyweight) took overall bronzes in the four-day Pan Am event that ended Sunday at UIC.

Robles was 4.4 pounds short of a medal in clean-and-jerk and some 14 shy of an overall medal. She would need to lift about 90 more pounds to contend for an Olympic medal.

"My Olympic lifts are still catching up to my strength," Robles said. "But I'm new to the sport."

In 18 months, Robles has upped her total by a whopping 132 pounds.

"For someone in their 20s to make that kind of improvement is rare," Micela said. "But Sarah is a natural athlete."

The top two finishers in Robles' class, Seledina Nieve of Ecuador and three-time Olympian Eva Dimas of El Salvador, both are in their 30s. Robles was the youngest of the heavyweights.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Cuba, Colombia dominate Pan-Am Weightlifting

CHICAGO (AP) — Lazaro Lopez Jimenez won three gold medals Sunday and helped propel Cuba to the top of the gold medal standings at the Pan-American Weightlifting Championships.

Cuba finished the competition with 16 gold medals, equaling Colombia for the most during the four days of weightlifting. Colombia won 38 medals overall, leading Cuba (22), Venezuela (21) and Mexico (14). There were 21 countries represented.

Lopez Jimenez was nearly upset in the 105 kg (231-pound) weight class by Venezuelan Angel Daza Tapia, who lifted 206 kg (453 pounds) in the clean and jerk to move into first place. But on his final attempt, Lopez Jimenez successfully lifted 207 kg to sweep the weight class.

He scored 370 overall to beat Daza Tapias 353 on the fourth and final day of competition at the University of Illinois-Chicago Forum.

"That lift was part of my strategy, because when I go back home in two weeks there is going to be a national Cuban championship that I need to get ready for," Lopez Jimenez said through a translator. "This was a big step for me, a big lift for me, and I'm very proud that I got it."

Lopez Jimenez failed to lift 206 kg on his second try because he said he was afraid of re-injuring his right leg, which he had surgery on last December. Prior to that injury, he said he was capable of lifting up to 215 kg (473 pounds).

"It was a very big ordeal for me because I wanted to get a lot of points and win the competition for my country," Lopez Jimenez said. "That's what we came to do."