Olivia Reeves tried treating the Olympics like just another competition. It didn’t work.
It didn’t matter, either.
Nerves or no nerves, Reeves won the United States’ first Olympic gold medal in weightlifting in 24 years at the Paris Games last week.
“Feeling the weight of this competition is different than the others,” the Hixson native said. “I kind of knew there were going to be tears, good or bad.”
There were good tears after Reeves lifted 117 kilograms (258 pounds) in the snatch and 145 kg (320 pounds) in the clean and jerk for a total of 262 kg to beat Mari Leivis Sanchez of Colombia by five kilograms in the women’s 71 kg division. Angie Dajomes of Ecuador took the bronze.
Reeves, on track to graduate from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga this fall, said despite her attempt to treat the Olympics as just another event, “I got more nervous than all the others, so it didn’t really work.”
She seemed outwardly calm during the competition, but she wiped away tears during the medal ceremony and took deep breaths as the U.S. anthem played.
“I’ve heard the national anthem before. I’ve been on the podium before,” she said. “But this is the Olympics and to be here, be the Olympic champion hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m not quite sure, but I’m trying to process it.”
Reeves chose higher starting weights than her opponents in both parts of the competition, and completed her first five lifts. Her only failed lift came on a 150 kg clean-and-jerk attempt with the gold medal already won.
The U.S. last won an Olympic gold medal in weightlifting in Sydney in 2000, when Tara Nott won the lightest women’s division. That was the first Olympic Games to include women’s weightlifting on the program.
“I hope that this can inspire any young girl who wants to do this. I think to be a representative in this sport means a lot, and I’m proud to have that role,” Reeves said.
Reeves’ gold followed a historic bronze medal for Hampton Morris, the first Olympic medal of any kind for a U.S. men’s weightlifter since the 1984 Los Angeles Games.