Olivia Reeves received the US’ first Olympic gold medal in weightlifting in 24 years on the Paris Olympics on Friday.
Reeves lifted 117kgs (390lbs) within the snatch and 145kg (320lbs) within the clear and jerk for a complete of 262kg to beat Mari Sánchez of Colombia by 5 kilograms within the girls’s 71kg division. Angie Palacios of Ecuador took the bronze.
Reeves, from Hixson, Tennessee, appeared calm through the competitors, however stated later she had been feeling the nerves. Reeves stated she needed to deal with the Olympics as simply one other occasion, “and I acquired extra nervous than all of the others, so it didn’t actually work.”
Throughout the medal ceremony, Reeves wiped away tears and took deep breaths because the US anthem performed.
“I’ve heard the nationwide anthem earlier than. I’ve been on the rostrum earlier than,” she stated. “However that is the Olympics, and to be right here, be the Olympic champion hasn’t sunk in but. I’m not fairly certain, however I’m making an attempt to course of it.”
Reeves opted for greater beginning weights than her opponents in each components of the competitors, and accomplished her first 5 lifts. Her solely failed raise got here on a 150kg (131lbs) clean-and-jerk try with the gold medal already within the bag.
The US final received an Olympic gold medal in weightlifting in Sydney in 2000, when Tara Nott received the lightest girls’s division. That was the primary Olympic Video games to incorporate girls’s weightlifting on this system.
“I hope that this could encourage any younger woman who needs to do that. I believe to be a consultant on this sport means rather a lot, and I’m proud to have that function,” Reeves stated.
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Reeves’ gold adopted an historic bronze medal for Hampton Morris on Wednesday, the primary Olympic medal of any form for a US males’s weightlifter for the reason that 1984 Los Angeles Video games.
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