Month: August 2017

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Chapter Four: Meeting other lifters

Around September of 1998 Meagan came along. I learnt that she was the same weight class as me and had been a lifter a few years earlier. She was now making a come back, joining us at Burwood, aiming for the 2000 Olympics. She was a bit shorter than me (which is saying something considering my 5 foot stature) and she was naturally very strong and muscular. I hate to admit it but I felt jealous of her. Until she arrived Luke had been paying a lot of attention to me. I was worried that I would get dumped and she would now get all the attention. Silly really, as I got to know Luke better I realised he would never do that, he payed attention to all his lifters, coaching everyone from the elite to the newcomers. Certainly for the years while I was around, he didn’t ignore those that weren’t talented and gave everyone a chance to be the best they could be, as long as they were willing to put in the effort and follow his rules and advice.

I also was worried that Meagan would be a threat as I thought there would only be room for one 58kg lifter. I was concerned that she might beat me and take me off a team. I am embarrassed to admit I wasn’t very warm and friendly to Meagan at first, but then I didn’t really see her that much either. Being a police officer she was on shift work and had to train at different times during the day to me. Little did I know, whilst we would become great rivals, we became the greatest of friends.

The Commonwealth Games were also on in 1998. Two lifters from Burwood were competing in the Men’s 56kg category and Luke was over in KL, Malaysia with them as the Head Coach. Everyone was expecting Johnny Nguyen to win three gold but he came away with nothing, and it was Mehmet Yagci who returned home with a gold medal in the Snatch. We watched their competition on a small portable telly which Steve Tikkanen propped on a chair in the gym, and all stopped training when they came on. It was so exciting to watch, especially with Mehmet’s antics when he won, earning him the name “The Cartwheel Kid”. I had goosebumps watching it all, especially because I knew them. It’s funny how at that time, I wasn’t really thinking about whether I would be doing the same thing four years later. My focus was all on the 2000 Olympics and I really wasn’t looking any further than that. I didn’t even plan at that time on going on any further than 2000.

Towards the end of 1998 I also met Michelle Kettner. She had moved to Sydney from Melbourne with her husband Steve Kettner, preparing for the Olympics. Steve was a former weightlifter and competition manager for SOCOG (Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games) and Michelle was Australia’s number one female lifter. I was in absolute awe of her. She was professional, strong, yet unassuming and not at all arrogant as so many other elite athletes often are. I was too shy to talk to her much in those days as I thought she wouldn’t want to talk to a nobody like me. Later we also became great friends and I realised how wrong I was to think like that.

During this period, I also got to know a few of the other NSW lifters that trained at Burwood. Everyone helped each other, the more experienced always keen to offer little tips to the newer lifters like me. It felt like a family, with everyone genuinely encouraging each other and wanting each other to succeed. This tight, close-knit community became really important over the next few months.

Coming up next – Chapter 5: Set-backs & my first visit to Nauru

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Chapter Three: Training & competing in the early days

In my first ever Weightlifting competition I was really nervous, even though it was just a small competition in the hall at Burwood PCYC. I don’t know why I was so nervous. I had competed so many times as a Powerlifter, and at world level. Why was I so nervous now? Perhaps because I knew how important it was now. It was my debut in the lead up to the Olympics. I only had 2 years and I knew if I was to make it I had to give it everything I had, no mucking about.

Plus, I had a feeling that there was a level of expectation. Luke had mentioned to a few people he had this new lifter to watch. Oh, I could feel they were watching alright… and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself.

Nadeene, a 20 year old 53kg lifter who had started training a year or so earlier having come from a gymnastics background, took me under her wing and showed me how to warm up for a competition. I discovered it was very different to the way we warmed up for a normal training session. We were now conserving energy with less repetitions, saving it for our lifts on the competition platform.

This first competition at Burwood was also the first time I met Lindsay and Maria, both from other clubs in NSW. They were young teenagers only around 15 or 16 years old and had talent and big futures. Or so we thought at the time. They were both lovely girls who later ended up coming to Burwood to train on a more permanent basis. I really liked them both and it was nice to have some more females in the gym.

I managed to do ok at that first competition and used this as one of my first stepping stones along the way to qualifying for the Olympics.

After only a short time training (a month or so) I was soon invited to be part of the NSW team for the National Championships coming up in Adelaide. So in July 1998 I travelled with the NSW team to Adelaide with only 3 ½ months training under my belt, to make my big national debut. By this time, my technique was coming along nicely.

At the hotel in Adelaide which was hosting the competition, I remember catching up with a couple of the NSW lightweight male lifters, Johnny and Mehmet, one morning before their competition. There was a small group of us in their room and they had just weighed in, so had 2 hours before they competed. Steve and I watched in horror as they ate pasta and chicken, chasing it down with real Coke. I mentally thanked Brian, my old Powerlifting coach, for all the lessons we had been given in preparing for competition from a diet perspective! True, in Powerlifting we used to have a 24 hour weigh-in, compared to the 2 hour weigh-in for Olympic weightlifting. But either way, we knew pasta was far too slow acting to be of any use in that small window before a competition; there are much better alternatives of food (and drink) to ensure you perform optimally in your competition. Even the night before a competition, pasta was not the ideal food. And what was the point of eating protein within an hour of competition? This is all ignoring the fact it was morning – there is no way I could stomach that sort of food at that hour! The really amazing thing was, both of these lifters were considered amongst the best in the country. In the coming months and years I would slowly educate some of my team mates on methods for dropping bodyweight quickly without losing strength and the merits of quick acting carbohydrates, like babyfood, before a competition! Come to think of it, I was later approached by a coach /advisor of one of Australia’s top elite & Olympic swimmers for some advice on diet.

So anyway, when it came time for my own competition, I discovered apparently Luke had been telling the other national coaches about the new lifter he had and how talented I was… Unfortunately I was so nervous that all my new learned technique completely went out the window and only brute strength came through. I seemed to forget everything I had learnt and was lucky I didn’t hurt myself.

Despite my comical technique, which probably could have won a prize on Australia’s funniest home videos, I managed to place fourth out of 8 competitors. Plus I was attempting weights not far behind the winning weights. Although I looked pretty funny and uncoordinated with my ‘crappy’ technique, I obviously had lots of potential (well at least in my mind) and Luke told me afterwards that I had impressed a few people – but not for my technique! I managed to total about 140kg and qualified for the NSW Institute of Sport (NSWIS) scholarship program, which meant some financial assistance for travel to future competitions and a beautiful purple lifting suit. I knew then that although I had a lot of hard work ahead of me, I would make it. I believed in myself 100%.

It was at the 1998 Nationals though that I realised how much more competitive Olympic Weightlifting was compared to Powerlifting. Although I had no doubt I could make the Olympic team, I began to realise that it would be more difficult than I first imagined. There were some really talented girls out there. I had to do everything (legally and morally) possible to achieve this dream.

Back into the gym for a few months and I was improving dramatically. I still kept falling ungracefully backwards on my backside while trying to master the snatch technique, collecting more splinters in my pants from the wooden lifting platforms than a lumberjack. My hands hurt as I tore callous after callous. And I found it really difficult to get the timing right on the clean, repeatedly being told by Luke and the other coaches to “hit the bottom quickly” and “catch the bounce”. My technique was inconsistent and I still had a long way to go.

So, at Luke’s recommendation, I started training twice a day. I would arrive  at the gym at Burwood around 6.30am for a 7am session before work, then return for another session after work at 6pm, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, plus trained once a day on Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings. I was training 8 times a week, and although it was hard and tiring, especially since I am not a morning person, it really worked. Luke said the extra sessions was like adding another year’s worth of training into the time I had left before the Olympic qualifier. He was right – I was improving all the time and my technique was becoming more consistent.

I wasn’t squatting weights anything like as heavy as I used to when I was a Powerlifter, but then I was also training at a lighter bodyweight, at around 59kg, instead of 62kg. It was easy to maintain this weight, with this type of training and volume. I could eat whatever I liked, and had no trouble making 58kg for a competition.

Although it was hard work, it was also quite fun during those days. While the training environment was serious, we were all on the same path, trying to improve and we had some very passionate coaches with us, helping us along the way.

Coming up next – Chapter 4: Meeting other lifters.