The 2014 American Open Championships

The 2014 American Open Championships

News

Records Smashed At American Open

In one of the most anticipated performances of the American Open, Darren Barnes and CJ Cummings did not disappoint. Barnes set American records for the junior and senior age groups in the men’s 56-kg weight class for his 112-kg snatch and 237-kg total. “I PR-ed my snatch, which was a really big deal because it was twice my body weight,” he says. “I’m really happy with how the competition went.” Barnes says he hopes to compete again in March, although he is not sure what competition he will participate in yet. “Until then it’s lifting and training,” he says. Cummings, a 14-year-old athlete competing in the men’s 69-kg weight class, shattered American youth records for his age group and the 16 and 17-year-old age groups with a total of 270 kgs. “In 2020, he's your man," says Ray Jones, Cummings’ coach, in a recent article for The State. “He's the guy you're looking at to say 'Hey, he has a shot to do really well.’” Alex Lee, an athlete in his mid-20s from East Valley CrossFit in Chandler, Ariz., edged out Cummings to take gold with an American record-breaking total of 305 kgs. Other Olympic hopefuls had strong showings throughout the three-day event, which took place in Washington D.C., Dec. 12-15. Team USA athlete Ellen Kercher set a new PR with a 75-kg snatch, earning silver in the women’s 53-kg total. “I was very happy with my snatch,” says Kercher. “If I would have made my clean and jerks that would have made a huge difference in my performance. I only made half of my lifts so there is lots of room for improvement.” Kercher has her sights set on the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio, March 5-8. Team MuscleDriver USA also had a strong showing with six athletes making it to the podium for totals. Jared Fleming swept the men’s 94-kg weight class with a 167-kg snatch, 196-kg clean and jerk and a 363-kg total. Fleming went six for six in his lifts, setting new PRs and earning the best lifter award. “Big thanks to everyone for all the support and helping me get through my back injury to now hitting lifetime PRs and putting me back to the top of USA Weightlifting,” he wrote on social media. “More to come and pushing for Rio 2016.” Fleming’s scores helped MDUSA male athletes secure the men’s team title. MDUSA women took second for the women’s team title. “This group of lifters truly [pour] their hearts and souls out on the platform day in and day out, and as their coach I am jacked to watch them do battle,” MDUSA coach Travis Mash wrote in a blog post. Phil Andrews, director of events and programs for USA Weightlifting, says he hopes the success of the American Open is indicative of future events USAW will host. "Bringing this event to one of America's iconic cities saw the introduction of a city wide schools weightlifting program, record breaking performances from our athletes, outstanding efforts from our event volunteers and marks another step as we prepare to host the World Championships in 2015,” he says.   (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk')); Post by Jared Fleming.

Dec 15, 2014

Records Smashed At American Open

Greg Everett On State Of Sport, American Open

Greg Everett has been in the sport of weightlifting for just over a decade and has evolved from student, to competitor, to coach, to writer, to producer, to running running the popular facility Catalyst Athletics. Everett is still an avid lifter and will be competing in the American Open this weekend in D.C. We caught up with him to get his take on the sport and his approach this weekend. Did you ever envision weightlifting being as popular as it is now, and can you foresee ESPN eventually broadcasting meets? If you asked me in 2006, I probably wouldn't have expressed much optimism about its popularity growing significantly. However, the landscape changed very dramatically in the few years after that, and it became obvious that it would grow considerably. That said, it's still orders of magnitude behind the most popular sports in the U.S. and even behind CrossFit, which is the source of most of the new interest, meaning weightlifting will always lag behind it in terms of popularity. I think it's possible that a company like ESPN will eventually be interested in broadcasting major meets, but it won't be soon and it probably won't be live (at least on TV - more likely online streaming). I think people inside the CF community have an inaccurate sense of its popularity; yes it's grown dramatically, but for the overwhelming majority of TV-sports-watching Americans, it's still unknown or uninteresting. In your documentary, '[American] Weightlifting,' you said that the participation numbers were 4,000-5,000... USAW recently released numbers closer to 16,000. What are your thoughts? The membership tripled or quadrupled in the four years it took me to make that movie, which is great, but it's only a start. By way of comparison, USA Gymnastics has 110,000 members - almost seven times USAW. We're not even in the same league. And gymnastics is a reactively small sport. You also have to keep in mind that many of the new members are newly certified coaches - primarily CrossFit trainers who are simply adding to their credentials and often don't actively coach competitive weightlifters, which means that number is not a totally accurate representation of actual competitive lifters and coaches. I think what's happened is that, while all segments of the membership have grown, the segment of totally dedicated competitive weightlifters and coaches (i.e. those who don't also do CrossFit or who coach other athletes primarily) has become a smaller percentage of the total membership. That said, it's still a good thing because it increases the number of spectators and interested parties in general (e.g. sponsors and media). Do you think that the American Open is going to be run in a timely manner as opposed to previous events given the sport's growth, and do you have any thoughts on how the competition will play out for all of the athletes in regard torest between attempts? For all the whining you may see on the internet about how horribly meets are run, they really are run quite well for the most part. The worst to date was the Dallas American Open, but in the meet director's defense, it was an unexpected and huge increase in lifters - something like double the previous year. No one could have been expected to predict it. And no one can run a three-platform meet perfectly and on time without planning well ahead of time. The National Championships this year was a great event and there were only a couple sessions that had scheduling/timing issues. I had 11 lifters, I believe, and only one had a session with any considerable issue, and it wasn't that big of a deal. Most people these days would much rather put their time and energy into public complaining instead of doing something to help the problem such as serving on one of the several USAW committees, the board, volunteering at meets, etc. Most of the complaints are unfounded or exaggerated anyway and often come from people brand new to the sport who don't understand how it all works anyway. Regarding timing of attempts, I don't think it will be a big deal. The Gina start list is out and all of the sessions have only about 10 lifters, which is a perfect number. The issue isn't really the total number of people anyway so much as the proximity of weights. That is, you could have a 25-lifter session (not within the rules, but just an example) that runs perfectly fine with no extended wait times as long as there is a big spread of weights. However, if you have a session of eight to 10 lifters who are all lifting about the same weights, then you have extended wait times. This happens at the world championships commonly and you don't hear anyone whining about it on Facebook. Coaches and athletes need to know how to handle situations like that effectively rather than throwing up their hands and quitting as if some egregious injustice has been committed. How many athletes are you sending to Nationals this year and who are they? It will probably be nine for 2015 Nationals in August: Jessica Liao (48), Danielle Durante (58), Jessica Salvaggio (58), Alyssa Sulay (63), Chelsea Ryan (69), Tamara Solari (75+), Blake Barnes (69), me (105), Brian Wilhelm (105+). For the American Open this weekend, only Tamara Solari and I are competing. Because of the unusual date and location this year, our team opted to do a meet in San Francisco instead of the AO this year. I think we had 12 or 13 lifters last year. You’re running a business, coaching, creating premium content for your website, writing, and somewhere in the mix still finding time to be a father, husband, and badass athlete. How do you manage to keep up with this? I've just adapted to it over many years by learning how to work very quickly and efficiently as well as tolerate a lot of stress. The fact is that I don't get as much work done as I want because of the time commitment to training. But training is just as important to me as the business so I don't consider it an option to do less for the sake of opening up more work hours in the week. What really kills me more than anything is traveling, which I do a lot for seminars and have been doing since 2007. Starting in 2015, I'll be sending my coaching staff without me to our seminars so I can focus on all of the creative projects I have back logged. I have a list of projects and things I have to do that grows faster than I can check things off. The good news is that if I'm not busy with something productive, I'm not happy, so I suppose I'll be happy indefinitely at this rate. How do you feel about your training? My feelings about my training change very frequently because it's up and down depending on all of the factors outside the gym mentioned above. My traveling toward the end of this year along with a few other things meant I didn't have a day off for three months, which didn't help anything, and that exhaustion led to me getting sick several times, which is usual. I still have a lingering cold on my way to D.C. But on average I've been fairly pleased with how it's going. But really what matters is what happens in competition so we'll find out in a couple days. How do you feel about your competition this year? Honestly I don't really have any competition that I worry about. That's not because I'm the best, but because I'm always hovering right around the middle of the pack. My real competition is myself. Yes, I always want to place as high as I can, but my competition strategy is built on beating my own past performances rather than my competitors. You do well in weightlifting by lifting more weight, so I focus on lifting the most weight I physically can on that day. That's more than some and less than others. If I were in the mix for medals, I would probably approach it slightly differently, but ultimately I believe in a focus on beating your own best performance is ideal. Athletes become obsessed with their competition and usually all it does is drain their energy and distract their focus. Are you confident about the original lift you had in mind to open with, or have you decided to switch it up last minute? I'm as confident as I ever am going into a meet. I typically choose attempts several weeks before a meet and commit to them mentally. If you don't do that, you just spend time doubting yourself, and that's the best way to miss lifts. I'm also fortunate in the sense that I don't have anything on the line other than my sense of pride and self-worth (that's only partly sarcastic) - for example, I'm not battling for international team spots - so I've developed an interesting sort of acceptance regarding competition performances - I do what I do and I'm not going to lose my mind over it either way. I'm also about to turn 35, much older than the best in my weight class (the top guys in the class are 10 or more years younger than me), so even being in the A session with guys at that level is enough for me at this point to not feel like a complete loser. As a competitive athlete, do you like to hit a large number before going on the platform, or do you stay light on purpose in order to keep an element of surprise? If you mean in the warmup room of a competition, I warmup exactly how I would when going for a maximal lift in the gym, which means working up to it progressively. My last warmup lift is within about 5 kg of my opening weight so I'm not surprising anyone. It's not the kind of thing you can really do - you have to build to a weight. The only way to surprise competitors is by changing your attempt weights from your original declarations or taking unpredictably large jumps between attempts, but that's visible and they can also see you warming up so it's fairly obvious if someone is going to jump significantly - for example, if they're very close time-wise to their originally declared opener but far away weight-wise, you know they're going to bump. Do you have any superstitions that you can’t get away from (ie: knee sleeves, wraps, belts, singlets, etc) I definitely have habits and consistent practices, but nothing superstitious. The closest I can think of is that I don't watch the other lifters warming up or on the platform. It distracts your focus and if they lift poorly or miss, it gets in your head. You want nothing in your head that has anything to do with bad or missed lifts. Have you ever missed a lift purposefully to win a meet? I wish I had the luxury of being able to choose to miss lifts, but no, I only miss accidentally. You win in weightlifting by out-lifting your opponents, so you have to make lifts to do that. There is a lot of possible strategy with weight and timing manipulation but I can't think of a situation in which it would be beneficial to miss a lift. You could theoretically miss your opener to trick other lifters into being more conservative with their attempts because they believe you won't be able to make much more, but in a sport where you have only 3 shots at each lift, throwing one away for a dubious advantage is a risky game. 

Dec 12, 2014

Greg Everett On State Of Sport, American Open

The Road To Rio Begins In Washington D.C.

Ellen Kercher seeks gold at American Open By Andrea Signor   Ellen Kercher is used to the top spot on the podium. Since she started lifting in 2006, she’s won more than 30 gold medals at local and national competitions, including a dominating performance at the 2012 National Junior Championships. She hopes to continue that trend in Washington, D.C., Dec. 12-15 as she prepares to compete in the 53-kgs weight class at the American Open Championships. “I’m hoping to win,” she said. “I have a lot of competition.”   As she prepares for her second senior weightlifting event, Kercher said she hopes to put up some big numbers. “I want a 75-kgs snatch and a 100-kgs clean and jerk,” she said. Her previous personal records in competition are 74-kgs and 94-kgs, respectively.   In seventh grade, Kercher played on her school’s basketball team and, during a weightlifting training session with the high school team, a coach first observed her lifting technique. He encouraged Kercher to focus on weightlifting and offered to train her. “My first competition was in Disney World,” she said. “I won.” Kercher said she continued refining her technique and continued putting up big numbers.   After winning the 2012 National Junior Championships, Olympic Training Center coach Zygmunt Smalcerz recruited Kercher for Team USA. “He saw me and he wanted me out [in Colorado],” she said. Kercher left her home in Georgia for Colorado Springs, where she trains six days each week at the Olympic Training Center and studies nutrition at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She said she’s learned a lot in the past two years, including how to communicate with her coaches. “I’ve learned to be patient and listen to my body when it’s hurting,” she said.   Before she arrived at the Olympic Training Center, Kercher said she struggled with a sprained elbow, which continued to ail her as she prepared for her first American Open in 2012. After a disappointing performance, doctors determined she tore the ulnar collateral ligament in her elbow. “I was worried I was not going to be prepared to compete in the 2013 Junior Worlds that was held in Peru,” Kercher wrote in her blog. “As the time towards worlds ticked down, I slowly worked my way up in weights by increasing ten percent each week.”   Kercher – a hopeful for the 2016 Olympics in Rio – said she’s ready for the upcoming competition. “I want to try and do my best and do what my coaches tell me,” she said. “I just need to believe in myself.” What are your predictions for the upcoming American Open? Let us know in the comment section below!  Related Articles: Weightlifting Runs Through His Veins  Is The New Scaled Division Scaling The Sport?

Dec 6, 2014

The Road To Rio Begins In Washington D.C.
The Road To Rio Begins In Washington D.C.
Event Info
This competition will bring competitors from around the world to Washington, DC the host city for USA Weightlifting's American Open, which will be held at the Washington Hilton from Dec. 12-15, 2014. Visitors and local residents will be able to see hundreds of the best national and international weightlifting athletes compete, as they continue their journey towards the Summer Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.