|
|
Tuesday, September 19
Weightlifting was Nott her first choice
Associated Press
Tara Nott once figured her ticket to the Olympics was in
gymnastics, and she was talented enough to compete in several
regional events.
That wasn't good enough. So Nott decided to try to win an
Olympic medal in soccer, and she was skilled enough to play on the
U.S. under-19 and under-23 national teams.
|  | | Tara Nott wasn't quite strong enough in her previous sports to make an Olympics team. |
She made it to the 1996 Games, all right, but only as an athlete
liaison.
Finally, her break came when a pair of coaches she met before
the Olympics, Lyn Jones and Mike Gattone, noticed her short but
powerful physique and persuaded her to try ... weightlifting?
And try she did, becoming a U.S. record-holder in several
categories and earning a spot on the team going to Sydney, where
female weightlifting will be a full-fledged Olympic event for the
first time.
More familiar with back flips than back lifts, Nott wasn't
totally sold on the sport at first. She was strong, very strong,
but she had always participated in sports where flexibility,
litheness and speed afoot were required more than strength. This
was a whole new world.
Turns out, it was her world, even though she first had to
convince her mother, Nada, about a radical transition at an age
when many Olympic athletes are retiring, not trying a new sport.
"I called her, and she said, 'What are you doing?"' said Nott,
24 when she first tried her new sport. "I think she and some in my
family were confused, and thought I was trying bodybuilding. But,
by then, she was used to me switching sports."
She built her body, for sure, but only so she could lift more
weight, develop new muscles, tone the ones already developed by
years of athletic training. She soon became a sensation in her new
sport, winning her first national title in the smallest weight
class, 105 pounds, within six months.
Now, the 28-year-old Nott finally has that ticket to the
Olympics -- and it's her own -- after breaking American records in
the snatch, the clean and jerk and total weight in the U.S. trials
in suburban New Orleans.
Because she competes in weightlifting's equivalent of the
lightweight class, she will be the first U.S. athlete to hoist a
barbell in Sydney.
"Think about that," she said. "That's quite an honor."
Obviously, she was a quick learner.
"I like weightlifting because it's just you and the bar," Nott
said, explaining how working out four hours a day, seven days a
week for four years has honed her into a world-class lifter.
"Nobody else can help you. You sacrifice a lot to become good."
Nott accepts the anonymity of a sport seldom seen on television
except during Olympic years, and even then is relegated to the
off-hours when there are few viewers. She also doesn't make much
money, about $1,000 a month plus room and board, as a full-time
athlete training at the U.S. Olympic Center in Colorado Springs,
Colo.
She considers it more important that she is making a living
doing what she wants to do: competing, improving, winning.
"I have enough to live on, plus have some left over. I've tried
to invest wisely. And we're a lot better off than some of the other
Olympic athletes who don't get any money at all," she said. "I
consider us very fortunate."
Still, she knows many in her high school class in Stilwell,
Kansas, don't have any idea what she does.
"Our 10-year reunion is right after the Olympics, and I know a
lot of my friends are going to be surprised," she said. "It's
going to be exciting to explain to them that I was at the
Olympics."
It would be even nicer to show them an Olympic medal, especially
since the United States hasn't won a medal in weightlifting since
1984 and hasn't won a gold medal since 1960.
Nott has lifted 82.5 kg (181¾ pounds) in the snatch, a U.S.
record, and the world record is 87 kg (187¼ pounds).
"I'm right there," she said. "I've always been a competitive
person, and I'm not one to be pushed around a lot."
She proved that when she was growing up, playing whatever sport
was in season with her three male cousins. No doubt they weren't
surprised when she was the only woman to nail all six lifts in the
Olympic trials July 22, setting U.S. records in the snatch, the
clean and jerk (225¾ pounds) and total weight (407½ pounds).
In the clean and jerk, in which the barbell is raised to the
chest and then overhead, she lifted twice her body weight, plus
nearly 20 pounds.
"I was very focused and aggressive -- like they say, I was in a
zone," she said. "It was just me and the weight. I didn't see
anyone or hear anyone until I was done. Then, I got excited."
|  | |
|
