News

Arley Calderon (CUB): “The Games were never so close for me…”

Just outside the best 10 in the Olympic ranking before competing in the IWF Grand Prix in Havana, Arley Calderon was the home hero on the third day of the event after getting two bronze medals in the men’s 61kg. At the IWF World Championships, last December in Bogota (COL), the Cuban ace lifted 280kg and was in the “unpleasant” 11th position of the ranking determining the competitors getting their “ticket” for next year’s Olympic celebration in the French capital. At the Pabexpo, and in front of some very enthusiastic fans, Calderon made a personal best of 286kg to finally enter that restricted 10-athlete group. With a 125kg snatch and a 161kg clean & jerk, the 24-year-old climbed twice to the lower march of the podium, precisely in the two-movement variant and in total. This result – a personal best – gives him a provisional ninth place in the Olympic ranking, after three other results above 181kg, which was the 10th-place cut arriving at the Cuban rendezvous.  Arley Calderon (CUB) Arley has now participated in three qualifying events for the Games – after the Worlds in Colombia and before competing at home, he was also present at the Pan-American Championships, last March in Bariloche (ARG), where he got the lowest total so far in this Olympic path, 275 kg (silver in his category). In 2022, in the continental showcase, he was also second in the 61kg, with the same 275kg total. Visibly thrilled after his last attempt in Havana, Calderon hardly finds the words to thank the support he received throughout the competition. “It was quite thrilling to lift here, in my country, and get this personal best. The support of the entire Cuban team and all those who were here in the venue gave me the additional strength I needed to perform well. In the end, it paid off and I am obviously very happy,” confesses the Cuban star. Asked if he immediately understood the importance of his results in terms of entry in an Olympic qualification “zone”, Calderon admits: “During the competition, I didn’t care about that. I was so concentrated that I couldn’t think of something else. I was focused on my technique and on making sure that my lifts were solid. When it was all over, I then understood where this total had put in the ranking…” Things are, however, not over. “If I continue working hard, I believe I can still improve. There is no reason to doubt that. I sometimes competed in the 67kg category and lifted a bit more in that ‘unofficial’ category for me, so I know my body can stand some kilos more… I hope the Cuban people continue supporting me and in return, I promise that I will do the best I can to improve,” Calderon states. “Paris 2024? Of course, I believe in that possibility! With a lot of dedication, work, and faith I can compete in my first Olympics. The Games were never so close for me…” he jokes. Arrived in the world of weightlifting at the age of 13, Calderon immediately got stuck with this “hard sport”. Motivated by his family members, clearly fans of an activity “requiring strength and resistance”, he was quickly spotted by the coaches of the national team. Based in Havana with his teammates (since 2017 – he is originally from Pinar del Rio, the westernmost province), the Cuban star has a very demanding training programme, including double sessions three times a week, and one rest day, on Sundays. Also in the capital, he had time to complete his university studies, in Physical Education. “I want to continue connected with the sport after the end of my career. And, if possible, in the weightlifting world, perhaps as a coach or as a referee”. Reflecting on the challenging economic conditions affecting the Caribbean island, Calderon takes those difficulties with philosophy. “We lack many things and many resources. But we always find the means to overcome those obstacles. We are a country of resilient people, and the athletes are no exception to that. The Cuban competitors have brought excellent results to the nation, and everyone is very proud of those achievements,” he considers. If selected to compete in Paris, the goal is to fight for a medal, but on a more realistic prediction “to finish among the best eight” of his category. His next opportunity to reinforce, and if possible, improve his position in the Olympic ranking will be the IWF World Championships next September in Riyadh (KSA). By Pedro Adrega, IWF

Havana, Day 3: Gold for Indonesia, a good day for USA – and another medal for late starter Gallant

Ricko Saputra from Indonesia won gold, while Hampton Morris from the United States and Arley Calderon from host nation Cuba moved up the Olympic ranking lists on day three of the IWF Grand Prix here in Havana. On a good day for USA, Jourdan Delacruz won despite declining four of her lifts in the women’s 55kg, where Canada’s late starter Josee Gallant made the podium for a second time this year. In the men’s 61kg Saputra failed with two of his clean and jerks – as did seven others – and could not improve on his best qualifying total of 298kg. He remains behind his illustrious team-mate Eko Yuli Irawan, who is aiming for his fifth Olympic Games after winning medals in Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo. Ricko Saputra (INA) Irawan did not lift today because he has moved up to 67kg here for only the second time in a career that began more than 17 years ago. Morris gave out a big yell after his final attempts in snatch and clean and jerk, having made career-bests at this weight across the board on 124-166-290. His coach and father Tripp also made plenty of noise from beside the platform. “That was because we’re now in a really good spot to make it into the Olympic Games,” said Morris, the only lifter to make two clean and jerks. “We were hoping for a total of 290 and got it.” Hampton Morris (USA) Saputra was 10kg clear of seventh-placed Morris in the snatch and finished 5kg ahead of him on total, making 134-161-295. That was 3kg down on his Asian Championships effort and 5kg short of Irawan’s best total to date. Calderon had plenty of support and made 125-161-286, which will put him ninth in the simplified rankings, two places behind Morris. Henadz Laptseu from Belarus, competing as an Individual Neutral Athlete (AIN), had the rarity of a successful challenge on the way to snatch silver, one place ahead of Muhamad Aznil from Malaysia. They both lost ground in clean and jerk, finishing fifth and fourth respectively on 130-150-280 and 129-156-285. In a bizarre women’s session there were three no-shows from the nine entries in the start book, from North Korea, El Salvador and Haiti, a withdrawal after weighing in by Atenery Hernandez from Spain, and 10 declined attempts by the remaining five athletes. The plan for Delacruz – the only non-Asian ever to post a 200kg total at her usual weight of 49kg – was simply to make career-high openers and she executed it to perfection. Jourdan Delacruz (USA) When Shoely Contreras from Peru failed with her final clean and jerk, Delacruz was the winner from only two attempts on 85-110-195. The consistent Contreras made 87-104-191 for second place and Canada’s late starter Gallant was third on 86-103-189. It was a second podium place in only four international competitions for Gallant after a silver behind Contreras at the Pan American Championships in Argentina this year. There was disappointment for Giulia Imperio from Italy, who failed to make a total after moving up from 49kg and has now made only seven good lifts in three qualifying appearances. Imperio made her first international appearance aged 15, whereas Gallant was twice that age when she made her debut less than a year ago at the 2022 Pan American Championships. Josee Gallant (CAN) “Looking back, I would 100 per cent love to have started out at that age,” said Gallant, who was 31 last week. “I came to this sport via CrossFit and I love it. “I am a perfectionist and weightlifting is perfect for me because it always gives you the chance to perfect your movement a little more, you always want to work at bettering yourself either physically or mentally. This really is a beautiful sport.” It was a challenge today after Gallant failed with her first two clean and jerk attempts before making it at the last chance. “It takes such a mental capacity to come back from that,” she said. “It is hard, it is stressful.” Gallant works full time in communications for her home town of Truro in Nova Scotia, and still puts in the eight training sessions assigned to her remotely every week by her coach Kevin Zimmerman, who lives 4,700km away in Edmonton. When she won the national title at Kelowna, British Columbia last year, Gallant had to travel more than 5,300km, which is 2,000km further than the distance to Cuba. “That was about seven hours of flying. If I go to see Kevin in person to work on technique it’s a six-hour flight,” she said. Gallant won her first national title in May 2017 and would have gone from there into international competition but for personal circumstances. “My mother had cancer and she fell into a coma on the day I won in 2017,” said Gallant. “After she passed away I felt I was doing it for her, it was an homage, and I sort of lost my own passion for it. “It was a long journey. It took me five years to process things and to get back to doing it for myself – that’s why I started so late. “And now here we are, I am doing what my mother would have wanted me to do.” Gallant’s next stop will be the IWF World Championships in Saudi Arabia, after which she will take her time in losing weight to drop down to 49kg and try to qualify for Paris 2024. Most of the people in Truro “have never heard of weightlifting” said Gallant, who is happy to explain its delights to them. But she does have an international team-mate nearby in the super-heavyweight Quinn Everett, who lifts in Cuba next weekend. “He only lives about an hour’s drive away so every now and then we meet up to train together in his garage,” said Gallant. By Brian Oliver, Inside the

Fighting for a position in the Olympic ranking: “I will not surrender!”

In the qualification path for the 2024 Olympic Games, one of the main challenges for the athletes taking part in the events that constitute that “road” is their place in the Olympic Ranking. As a reminder, for each of the 10 bodyweight categories included in the Games’ programme, only the best 10 athletes can guarantee their “ticket” to the Olympic celebration. Moreover, only one lifter per country can be classified in each category. This means essentially two things: besides fighting against all the competitors around the world, each athlete may have a national teammate to beat. Finally, as the places are nominal, only the lifter actually achieving the performance is selected for the Games. On the second day of the IWF Grand Prix in Havana (CUB), the final of the women’s 49kg was quite interesting. Before the Cuban rendezvous, the cut was 184kg, corresponding to the 10th place of the provisional ranking in that category. In the Pabexpo arena, three athletes made better than that, precisely the three medallists, Beatriz Piron Candelario and Dahiana Ortiz, both from the Dominican Republic and respectively gold and bronze medallist. Piron lifted an accumulated total of 191kg, Ortiz did 188kg, while the second best of the day, US Hayley Reichardt concluded with 190kg. If for the Dominicans this is of course an excellent outcome, only Piron has for the moment (and provisionally) the French capital as a possible destination for the summer of 2024. She is exactly the eighth on the list. As for Reichardt, who entered with 194kg, she needed to make 199kg to do better than her teammate Jourdan Delacruz, comfortably in the fourth position of the ranking, after her 198kg effort from the 2023 Pan-American Championships. Andrea de la Herran (MEX) got a bronze medal Interesting was also to know how Andrea de la Herran, from Mexico, could perform. Entered with a total of 190kg, the 26-year-old is in direct competition with her teammate Yesica Hernandez, who lifted 184kg at the 2022 IWF showcase in Bogota (COL) and “closes” the ranking in the 10th position. De la Herran had the opportunity to do better, but she failed her 102kg clean and jerk, only validating an 83kg-snatch (bronze medal) and a 98kg-C&J, for a total of 181kg. The Olympic qualification is still on hold for the Mexican star, who was Pan-American champion in 2018 but never took part in the Games. “I have to continue working on my body weight. Technically, I feel that I am OK, but I lost some weight and this affects my performances. I have already lifted 185kg, in 2022, so I will continue competing in the year that is missing for the Games to get at least that result. It is my personal best, and I am confident that I can achieve it again,” confessed De la Herran, whose best result in the Olympic Ranking was 176kg before this Grand Prix. “I will not surrender, and I will remain highly motivated to proceed with the Olympic dream. For one reason that only God knows, I couldn’t make it here, but it will come on another occasion. I was never at the Games, it’s really my most cherished dream!” Strongly supported by her coach and family, the Mexican lifter knows that her most direct competitor is as determined as her to validate the presence in the Olympics. “Yesica is certainly thinking and wishing the same. She has a slight advantage for the moment, but by training hard every day, I’ll manage to improve,” she says, smiling. “I have a great supporting team around me and I owe them this – the Olympic qualification. I respect Yesica a lot, we are two very strong competitors, but now each one has to fight for the best possible place”. De la Herran started practicing weightlifting at the age of 12, mainly because of the family's influence. “My parents, especially my father, were very athletic persons, who loved sports. At 15, results started to appear and I initiated international competition, with some success. From that moment on, I knew that I could do nice things in this sport. So, from an initial hobby, this became a very professional activity. I was surprised at the beginning, but then everything came into place quite naturally,” De la Herran continues. Representing the Mexican state of Guanajuato, she is ready to compete in the Central American and Caribbean Games (not an Olympic qualification event), starting some days after the conclusion of the IWF Grand Prix, and “of course the World Championships” in Riyadh (KSA), in September. Looking at the Olympic Rankings, only two women categories seem open to Mexican lifters – precisely the 49g, but also the 59kg, where Daphne Guillen is presently eighth. Among men, no lifters are so far in the best 10 going to the Games. Mexico has won four weightlifting medals (one gold, three bronze) at the Olympics since 2000, all in the women’s field. By Pedro Adrega, IWF

Havana, Day 2: Mother-of-three Piron wins B Group gold to boost chances of fourth Olympic Games

Beatriz Piron let out a scream of joy from the spectators’ seats when she won gold on day two of the IWF Grand Prix in Havana. The mother of three from the Dominican Republic had lifted in the B Group the day before – by chance rather than by strategy – and when the American Hayley Reichardt failed with her final two attempts Piron was left in first place in the women’s 49kg. Reichardt finished second and Piron’s team-mate Dahiana Ortiz, who was sitting alongside her because she had also lifted in the B Group, was third. “It was very exciting because we didn’t know if we would win medals,” said Piron. Beatriz Piron (DOM) Her 86-105-191 takes Piron up to 8th place in the Paris 2024 rankings and on course for a fourth Olympic Games appearance. “Nobody from my country has ever been to four Olympic Games and I can be the first, the record-breaker,” said Piron, 28, who placed ninth, fourth and eighth at London 2012, where she had just turned 17, Rio 2016 and the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games. “I am confident I can do it, I feel physically and mentally well prepared to qualify.” Qualifying for Paris would be a remarkable achievement for Piron, who has three young sons and who is already thinking about her next competition, the Central American and Caribbean Games starting in two weeks. That will be a priority because Dominican Republic is the host nation. Beatriz Piron (DOM) It was not a strategy to lift in the B Group here, Piron explained. It happened because another coach, who did not travel with the team to Cuba, had made the entry totals based on a recent performance rather than her training numbers. “It all worked out well,” she said. Piron is from a weightlifting family. She has a sister and a brother who lift internationally, and her inspiration when she took up the sport aged 12 was her aunt, the Pan American Games medallist Guillermina Candelario. She was also grateful for the support of her mother and her coaches Hector Dominguez, Javier Dominguez and Moreno Martinez. Reichardt made only two good lifts in her 83-107-190, which was 7kg down on her best qualifying total, and Ortiz made 83-105-188. Dahiana Ortiz (DOM) Piron and Ortiz took snatch gold and silver ahead of Andrea De La Herran from Mexico, who was sixth on total. Reichardt, 24, won clean and jerk gold on 107kg ahead of Ortiz and Piron. In the women’s 45kg Rosielis Quintana from Venezuela made 68-91-159 to finish well ahead of her only rival, the Cuban teenager Thaila Castillo, who made 60-75-135. PRK, whose 49kg lifter Ri Song Gum had posted an entry total of 201kg in the final entries last month, has made contact with the IWF by email and confirmed, without any explanation, that it will not compete in Cuba. As a result of its withdrawal PRK, which had entered 14 athletes for the IWF Grand Prix, cannot qualify for Paris 2024 as they will be unable to compete in enough qualifying competitions. By Brian Oliver, Inside the

From 1973 to 2023: The Professor’s memories

“Today, we have the conflict in Ukraine, but in 1973 we had also a difficult context. There was the Yom Kippur war and there was the ‘coup’ in Chile. The Israeli team arrived in Cuba and then withdrew, while the Chilean delegation could never land in Havana…” Discreet, in his dark blue suit, Carlos Cuervo is seated at the Pabexpo venue, the one hosting the IWF Grand Prix in the Cuban capital, waiting for the A session of the day, where he is one of the appointed Technical Officials. At almost 76, he is one of the most respected persons in the sport he “married” at the age of 14. Already present at the 1973 IWF World Championships, the last major event Cuba hosted in weightlifting, Cuervo is happy to share his memories and reflect on the present and future of his beloved sport. “I was essentially helping the organisation back then in 1973, making sure everything would run smoothly. I was everywhere, running all the time, helping whoever needed assistance. It was a great competition, well attended and with many funny episodes. We were in a kind of circular arena and of course there wasn’t electronic scoreboards like today. There was however a huge metallic structure, with some people hiding behind curtains, changing by hand the name of the athletes and the respective weights they were lifting. The result was quite nice, but the people watching it could not imagine the hidden ‘human resources’ behind those constant and fast updates,” he recalls.  Carlos Cuervo (CUB) The staging of an IWF World Championships followed the successful creation of a national team in 1965. “Before that, athletes were training in their corner, in their small town… There was no national coordination. A Cuban expert that had been in the Soviet Union then had the idea of creating a centralised group in Santa Clara. And this was decisive for the future. Results started to appear, namely at the 1967 Pan-American Games in Winnipeg, Canada, and the basis of what is today the Cuban weightlifting was initiated in those years,” Mr Cuervo admits. A dynamic of success was in place and it was then not difficult to convince the international instance that the Cuban capital was able to host the IWF showcase. “At the time, the Secretary General of the International Federation was a British gentleman, Mr Oscar State, a very nice man, but a bit conservative. And to our surprise, at the end of the Championships, he said that those were the best he had been to. That was the best tribute we could receive”. A consequence of the thorough development of Cuban weightlifting, the IWF World Championships (189 athletes – only men at the time – from 39 nations) were also a cause for further progress. “It was a big thing for our country. It fundamentally attracted many young people to weightlifting. Our national sport is baseball and to a less extent soccer or basketball. These are the main attractions for our youth. It is still the case today. But after that 1973 achievement, we managed to have many kids practicing the sport,” states the professor at the University of Physical Culture and Sport Sciences (UCCFD) in Havana. Some years later, Olympic medals appeared. It all started in Moscow 1980, then again in 1992, and the last one in London 2012. In total, eight podium presences in the biggest sport event on the planet, including two gold, one silver, and five bronze linings. “Weightlifting became a strong sport in our country, but let’s be honest, it will never compete with baseball, or even basketball…” The reason is simple: “We need equipment in weightlifting. And if we want to be professional, that equipment is expensive. Everyone knows the economic problems we are facing, so it is difficult to equip with decent barbells all the national clubs or structures interested in developing weightlifting”. There is even a more essential challenge – the nutritional aspect of the sport. “Competing at high-level, a lifter needs a very proteinic diet. This is unfortunately not easy to get in our country,” Mr Cuervo admits. “However, we, the Cubans, are experts in doing a lot with very few resources. We have a good generation of lifters, capable of achieving nice results. It’s maybe harder for us than for others, but we are getting there,” he confesses. Carlos Cuervo (right), with the President of Cuban Weightlifting Federation, Jorge Luis Barcelan After sharing these memories, Carlos Cuervo is happy to pose for a picture with the President of the Cuban Weightlifting Federation. “The Professor” - says Jorge Luis Barcelan, with a smile. “We owe him a lot in Cuba!” By Pedro Adrega, IWF Communications

Havana, Day 1: British Morrow loses 15% of her body weight to post Paris qualifying total

Fraer Morrow has become the latest weightlifter to make an extreme weight cut in an effort to boost her chances of qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Many others have had to drop a considerable percentage of their body weight to lift in one of the new Olympic categories, most notably the Tokyo champions Chen Lijun from China and Maude Charron from Canada, and the 87kg women’s world champion Solfrid Koanda from Norway. None of those three, however, had to shrink their weight by 15.5 per cent, which Morrow did before posting her first qualifying total on Thursday, the opening day of the IWF Grand Prix here in Havana, Cuba. Fraer Morrow (GBR) Morrow, 24, suffered a back problem two months after winning a Commonwealth Games bronze medal for England at 55kg last year, and has had to lose weight while training at only 60 per cent of her capabilities for much of the time. “I was training at 58 kilos last year so after coming back from injury and losing 9 kilos I’m happy to make a total here – but I’m an athlete so I always want more,” Morrow said after breaking all three British records in the 49kg B Group on 75-97-172. The back injury would need surgery for a permanent fix – “basically parts of my lower spine are too long for my body, but I’m not having surgery during Olympic qualification”. Morrow started losing weight in December when, because of her back problem, she was lifting only 35-45kg in training. “I went overboard a bit at Christmas and New Year because I knew the next 18 months were going to be tough,” she said. “It has been hard but I was down to 51kg by March and I have a nutrition team who have really helped.” Fraer Morrow (GBR) Morrow’s efforts put her in the top 30 in the rankings and left her third in the B Group behind two athletes from Dominican Republic, the triple Olympian Beatriz Piron and Dahiana Ortiz. Piron, 28, made 86-105-191, which will probably be enough for a medal after the A Group has finished on Friday night, and Ortiz made 83-105-188. Losing enough weight was too much for one of the seven entries. Omayraliz Ortiz from Puerto Rico could not get down to 49kg and was unable to lift. Chen lost about 10 per cent of his body weight when he dropped from 67kg to 61kg for the Asian Championships in Korea last month, where the Rio 2016 champion Ruslan Nurudinov from Uzbekistan was unable to cut from 109kg to the Olympic category of 102kg. It was less extreme for the Tokyo 64kg champion Charron and 87kg world champion Koanda because they planned well ahead and competed several kilos below the limit in higher classes before dropping. Charron is now in the 59kg rankings for Paris, and Koanda is due to make her first outing at the Olympic weight of 81kg here in Cuba on June 16. By coincidence, one of the referees for Morrow’s session was Daniel Nsegna, an academic working on a PhD at ULB university in Brussels, on “incidence and consequences of a strategy for losing weight quickly” in weightlifting and other sports with weight categories. Daniel Nsegna The Belgian-Cameroonian dual national, who was a coach at the Cameroon Federation for 12 years and is now its technical director, highlighted the potential dangers of trying to cut weight too quickly, which can lead to injuries and a drop in performance. “In all my life as a coach, athletes were trying to lose weight,” he said before Morrow went out to lift. “In Cameroon the strategy was more like a punishment – just stop eating.” Nsegna, a former 69kg athlete who moved to Belgium in 2011 and returned to Cameroon to lead its team at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, has been researching the subject since 2016 and will publish his latest work this year. He studied 50 weightlifters in his early work, looking for the consequences of rapid weight loss on strength, performance and body composition and is hoping to widen that number to 500 across a range of sports. “We discovered that losing weight quickly does not work long-term, that after a week or 10 days the body automatically tries to restore weight rather than lose it,” Nsegna said. “Usually it does not work if you lose more than 1kg a month. If you do it can cause damage to the body, you might suffer injuries, lose muscle and therefore strength, and that can also affect your technique.” Cutting weight quickly makes sense only in the week before a competition, after two weeks of transition from the long-term strategy, Nsegna said. “As a scientist, I believe that some of what is happening is dangerous for an athlete’s health, going up and down in weight to improve their qualification chances. “Scientifically, our body is like a cup, it can take only so much coffee and no more. There are absolute limits and when you modify a body’s capacity to absorb, that’s when you have doping. “Your body knows what weight it should be.” The evening A Group on day one in Havana, the men’s 55kg, had only three entries and one of those was from PRK, whose team has not shown up here. Osmel Argote (CUB) Osmel Argote from the host nation Cuba made 98-124-222 to win gold ahead of Jose Ical from Guatemala on 95-115-210. By Brian Oliver, Inside the