Workforce USA’s Olivia Reeves wins weightlifting gold at 2024 Olympics – NBC New York

Olivia Reeves lifted her means into weightlifting historical past on Friday, profitable the second Olympic gold medal for Workforce USA since girls have been allowed to compete in 2000.

Within the 71kg snatch session, Reeves was the final lifter to take the platform with the best quantity. She opened her first try with a conservative 112kg, 9kg shy of her private greatest in competitors, to make sure that she will get on the scoreboard. The 21-year-old breathed an enormous sigh of reduction after she efficiently accomplished the raise in a single fluid motion.

She then elevated to 115kg in her second try and matched Romanian Elena Loredana Toma‘s second try, an Olympic report. For Reeves’ third and closing snatch, she broke that report with a shaky 117kg snatch the place she practically stepped off the again of the platform.

In Toma’s third try, the six-time consecutive European champion did not match Reeves’ 117kg, leaving the Romanian in third. Ecuador’s Angie Palacios Dájomes, the silver medalist on the 2023 World Championship who then bested Reeves’ whole by 2kg, was in second place with a 116kg snatch.

The gold was then all however Reeves’ to lose. No different lady within the 71kg session might match her on the clear & jerk, if she’s in a position to register her first try at 140kg.

And he or she did.

It left her with an untouchable whole of 257kg. She would not even need to take her second and third makes an attempt to win gold, however she did hit a flawless 150kg for her second try. Her third try at 150kg would have been one other Olympic report however she could not get beneath the jerk.

The primary-time Olympian is now an Olympic champion with the whole of 262kg.

Mari Leivis Sanchez of Colombia took silver on Friday, whereas Palacios Dajomes earned the bronze.

Weightlifters from China usually dominate the game, however attributable to modifications within the qualification course of — every nation was allowed to ship solely three girls and three males to Paris 2024, one for every weight class. The variety of weight lessons was additionally diminished from 14 to 10.

China’s Liao Guifang, 2023 World Champion and weightlifting whole world report holder (273kg), would have been Reeve’s greatest menace to gold however she wasn’t chosen to hitch the crew.

Reeves’ dad and mom personal a CrossFit gymnasium and she or he has been competing since she was younger. She holds a powerful variety of 15 American data in youth, junior and senior classes.

She’s the 2023 World Cup gold medalist within the 71kg and followers are in search of her to quickly break the world report in each the snatch (121kg) and clear & jerk (154kg). Reeves’ private competitors greatest is 120kg for the snatch and 151kg for the clear & jerk.

If these numbers do not imply something to you, simply know that Reeves is extremely robust. She will squat greater than thrice her physique weight, in keeping with the quantity revealed by NPR. That is 224kg, or practically 500 kilos, and she or he’s solely getting stronger.

She has added 26kg to her whole because the first Olympic qualifier, in keeping with USA Weightlifting.

Olympic Weightlifting Schedule

American weightlifter Jourdan Delacruz completed fifth within the girls’s 49kg competitors after failing to rank in 2020.