Topic: News: 2009 USAW Schoolage Championships

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Siblings hope to lift team to weightlifting title
By Jonathan Zopf

Robby and Megan Poole have a relationship unlike any other set of siblings.

For one, they actually get along, but more importantly the two motivate and support each other when they need it the most. That will come in handy when the two Chestatee High students compete in the 2009 USA National School Age Weightlifting Championship that gets underway today at the Georgia Mountains Center.

“I hope to see her get new records and blow the competition out of the water,” Robby Poole said. “She’s pretty much got first place by 30 kilos.”

If that’s the case, that will mean another national championship for Megan, who began lifting in 2008 at the behest of her brother and Chestatee football coach Stan Luttrell.

“My brother told me to do it because he thought I’d be strong,” said Megan, who won the 2008 title just three months after she started lifting.

While the elder sibling Robby has yet to win a national title, he was able to join his sister on the medal stand in May when they helped lead Chestatee to a boys and girls title and were named the best lifters at the 2009 Georgia Weightlifting Championships at Flowery Branch.

“Those two are the best kids at Chestatee and they happen to be brother and sister,” Luttrell said. “They’re very coachable and good kids. That’s why they’re good at what they do.”

Aside from weightlifting, the two also excel in their respective sports, Robby in football and Megan in cheerleading. It’s certainly commonplace for football players to lift weights, but Megan is the lone cheerleader at Chestatee to lift weights.

“It helps a lot in cheerleading because it makes you stronger in stunting and tumbling,” she said.

She may be the lone cheerleader competing in this weekend’s event, but Megan is one of nine female competitors vying for a national championship in her weight class.

“I hope to get a national championship and best lifter in the nation,” said Megan, who tore her ACL last fall while cheerleading. “If I don’t reach my expectations, I won’t feel good about the meet.”

In order to reach those goals, Megan will position herself close to her brother while lifting. The two say that staying in close proximity during the meet helps.

“We normally try and lift next to each other to help push each other,” Robby said.

Added Megan, “We always work beside each other. It helps each other stay strong.”

The closeness has always been there for the Pooles. Just two years apart, Robby and Megan spent their childhood paling around and trying to get away with things.

“We’ve always been close,” Robby said. “This is another thing that’s helped us bond and grow closer.”

“He’s like my best friend,” Megan added. “We always encourage each other to do better.”

That will be needed this weekend when Megan tries to defend her title and Robby tries to win his first national championship.

“I’m just trying to hit new personal records on each the snatch and the clean and jerk,” said Robby, whose personal records are 107 kg in snatch and 125 in clean and jerk. “I just want to get a better total and hope to get a second place medal.”

If he moves up in weight class, Megan thinks her big brother will have good chance to finish first.

“If he moves up to the 94 kg weight class, he might have a chance to win a national championship,” Megan said.

If he does win a title it won’t ease the pain if Megan fails to defend hers.

“That would make me kind of mad,” she said. “But I know it’s harder for boys to compete.”

Especially because the field of male competitors is much deeper than that of the female. There are 157 boys and 110 girls that will participate in an overall team competition as well as individual contests.

The Pooles are just two of the 56-member Team Georgia, which consists of students from Chestatee, North Hall, Flowery Branch and several other high schools and will be vying for a national title against Hassle Free Weightlifting of California and Team Florida.

“I think we’re going to have to lift well in order to have a chance to win,” Luttrell said.

Robby has a different take.

“We’re trying to win the whole competition this year,” he said.

And if Team Georgia does in fact win the meet, that will be just one more thing Robby and Megan Poole can say they have in common.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

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Area prep lifters going for national title in own backyard
By Morgan Lee Editor

GAINESVILLE -- For hundreds of prep athletes from around the nation, days, weeks and years of training will all come down to about three seconds this weekend at the Georgia Mountains Center.

To put it more precisely, all that training will come down to three one-second intervals.

One second is how long it takes an athlete to complete a “snatch” weightlifting exercise, and that’s exactly what 330-plus prep competitors will undertake Friday through Sunday in the USA Weightlifting National School Age Championships in Gainesville.

“This is the biggest meet in country for these kids,” said Chestatee High football coach and Stan Luttrell, who is also co-coach for Team Georgia weightlifting, which includes a number of area athletes.

“We’ve been training for three years for this weekend.”

Chestatee, Flowery Branch, West Hall and Johnson High Schools, as well as Chestatee and C.W. Davis Middle Schools, each feature students that are members of the 54-person strong Team Georgia -- which consists of boys and girls ages 13-17. And, according to Team Georgia co-coach C.J. Stockel, it’s a group that has an excellent chance of claiming titles in both the girls and boys meets.

“We’re going to fight for a national championship,” said Stockel, who is the strength coach at Flowery Branch High. “Hope Stockel, Gracie Peck, Ellen Kercher and Megan Poole all will be among the favorites for the girls, while Ed Baker, Robby Poole, Jake Mathis, Chris Rhodes and Steven Jeffries should all be competing for medals the boys.”

Team Georgia’s girls already know what it takes to bring home the gold after sweeping the national title meet last summer in Florida, while the boys finished near the top in almost every category.

For Georgia’s girls to repeat and Georgia’s boys to raise the bar, Stockel says they will have to be wary of several other teams, including Hassle Free weightlifting from California, which has won the past two boys crowns.

“They’re the heavyweights,” Stockel said. “Team Florida, East Coast Gold and Team Houston will also bring strong teams. There will be over 40 different programs here. It just comes down to whoever lifts the most weight on that given day.”

For these competitors, three years of training will come down to three attempts (at each weight level) to complete lifts in both the “snatch” and “clean and jerk.” Each lift ends with the competitor hoisting a barbell over his or her head. The lifts are all currently part of Olympic competition and require the utmost physical strength, speed and coordination.

“The Olympic style of weightlifting is a formula of speed and power,” Stockel said. “You’re driving your feet into the ground and powering upward. It’s all about explosiveness.”

That kind of power is key for all kinds of athletes, which is why so many of the members of Team Georgia got into the sport –- to improve their performance on other playing fields.

“The ultimate objective is to be a better athlete, and this will help you accomplish that goal,” Stockel said. “This kind of training makes you faster; if you train fast, you’ll play fast.

“And if you want to compete at a collegiate level, you’ve gotta’ learn how to lift.”

Stockel should know. In 17 years spent training athletes in the state of Georgia, he has coached 16 school age national champions, eight international team members and three international gold medallists.

He’s hoping that number of international medallists will have a chance of increasing after this weekend.

“The top lifters from this competition will be chosen for two international teams,” Stockel said. “One will go to a meet in Chile, the other goes to Canada -- both in the fall.”

Whatever happens, Stockel says this will be a great opportunity for area sports fans to catch a glimpse of a sport that is as old as any.

"It's one of the original sports in the Olympics," Stockel said. "And we've got so many great lifters in this state and nobody even knows about it."