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How Olympic Weightlifter Kate Nye is Prepping to Qualify for Tokyo 2020

Kate Nye shared all the details on her current workout routine and diet (hint: it includes a daily brownie sundae) leading up to the 2020 Olympic Games. If you wonder about what it's like to train as an Olympic or Paralympic hopeful, start jotting down your questions now. Athletes are taking over the NBC Olympics Reddit account to host "Ask Me Anything" (AMA) discussions leading up to the next Olympic Games in Tokyo. Now's your chance to find out what everyone eats to stay fueled and the pump-up songs on their game-day playlists. Katherine (Kate) Nye was the first weightlifter to take on an AMA for the series. Nye, 21, already made history as the youngest U.S. women's world champion at age 20—she also holds multiple U.S. records and a world record and she only started weightlifting three years ago. And you should expect even more accomplishments soon. Nye declared that she'll be doing "everything [she] can" to realize her goal of becoming an Olympic medalist.   On her workouts... Nye wrote that she trains six to eight times per week, and she includes a full rest day once a week. She explained that because she's so zeroed in on the Olympics, she isn't including any cross-training in her routine other than yoga. "I really enjoyed keeping up my gymnastics skills, wakeboarding, wake surfing, snowboarding, and casual baseball, but those are things I have sacrificed to stay healthy for the Olympics," she wrote. "I'm looking forward to taking those backup but weightlifting is my #1 priority right now." (She was a gymnast until age 15 and then switched to CrossFit to stay in shape.) In an interview for the Team USA Awards in November, Nye shared the specifics of her daily three-hour training sessions. After warming up and stretching, she works on classic lifts, then she'll work on strength by squatting, deadlifting, and pressing. She follows that with accessory work (aka focusing on smaller specific muscles), then cools down. As for the whole "weight lifting makes you bulky and masculine" argument? Yeah, enough with that—Nye does not feel like she looks masculine as a result of her intense routine. When asked about the biggest myth surrounding female weightlifting, she wrote "Probably the good ole 'you're gonna look manly if you lift heavy,' which is really just BS. If you look at Team USA ladies, we are pretty feminine and usually have just a bit more muscle than an average athlete!" (Also, um, when you're a world-champ athlete, who cares!) On her diet... While Nye's training sounds very structured, her diet's pretty relaxed. She wrote that she eats "healthy but intuitively, with no set diet." Right now her goal with eating is to gain weight. "Every day is a cheat day for me 🙇🏼‍♀‍," she wrote. "I'm bulking to fit into my new Olympic weight category. BUT, my favourite is a nice pasta, preferably with lots of cream and tomatoes :) dessert is always brownie sundae!!" She also loves a good peanut butter or chocolate chip cookie. Later in the thread, she listed more of the foods that play a significant role in her training diet: "I'm really into egg white scrambles, sammies, chips and salsa, steak, chicken, rice, pasta, basically anything. I love good food!" On the mental side of training... On a more serious note, Nye also opened up about her mental health. Last year, she revealed on Instagram that she'd been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder and mild ADHD. She provided an update in her AMA, noting that she's since started on medication. "Bipolar disorder ruled my life for years," she wrote. "It determined if I liked weightlifting or not. If I could sleep or if I'd sleep all day. My moods, my temper, etc." But things are looking up: "Since I've been medicated, I've gotten much better at processing things and keeping my emotions steady." As far as the mental challenge of staying motivated, Nye says a love of lifting has helped. "Honestly, there are very few days I don't feel like lifting," she wrote. "It's my passion in life! When I don't, I just put my big girl pants on and get over it. Unless I'm injured or failing a lot, I don't take it easy." By Renee

IWF President Tamas Ajan Resigns IOC Honorary Membership

IWF President Tamas Ajan has resigned his IOC Honorary Membership, while remaining fully focused on ensuring the success of weightlifting at Tokyo 2020 and beyond. “Since the ARD TV show on weightlifting made its unfounded allegations at the beginning of the year, the work to investigate them has proven to be a time-consuming and costly exercise for the IWF. Ultimately, I continue to believe that the ongoing independent investigation will demonstrate the ARD’s allegations to be baseless where they concern the IWF and me personally. The promotion of weightlifting and the advancement of weightlifters have been my life’s work. After leading the IWF to become one of the international sports federations with the most effective and most respected anti-doping programmes, I am determined to ensure my work and that of so many others will not be undone. Now it is clearly vital that we maintain our focus on the success of weightlifting at Tokyo 2020. For that reason, in order to save the Olympic Movement from negative rumours and subsequent inconvenience, I have decided to resign my IOC Membership after having already served the Olympic Movement during the leadership of no less than four IOC Presidents. While looking forward to being exonerated personally, I will be concentrating only on the success of weightlifting, the sport which I

McLaren Report

You can read the findings of the McLaren investigation here. On behalf of the IWF Oversight and Integrity Commission and the McLaren team, below you can find the website for anonymous reporting for the McLaren Enquiry:

2020 IWF Junior World Championships, Bucharest, ROU – cancelled!

Communication from the IWF: "Throughout our planning for the IWF Junior World Weightlifting Championships 2020, as with any of our events, the health and wellbeing of participants has been a key priority. We have been diligent in seeking the best and latest advice in this regard. The recent spreading of the Coronavirus (COVID19) worldwide has been high on our agenda and in the focus of our concern. At present, the risk to individual health remains low. In order to mitigate impacts, however, public health authorities and governments around the world have acted quickly to put in place measures designed to slow and prevent further spread. These variously include outbound travel advisories, inbound travel bans, quarantines and self-isolation measures. Standing WHO advice is that in the case of major international sports events the individual characteristics of each event must be considered. A World Weightlifting Championships, such as the 2020 IWF JWC scheduled in Bucharest from 13 March, necessarily involves many people from about 80 countries being in close proximity indoors. Barbells and plates are touched by many hands. And in this case, the age of the athletes must also be considered. Furthermore, the extent and complexity of the public health measures being put in place is such that the IWF cannot be sure athletes of all nations would attend (or that if they did attend, they would be allowed to return home). We have concluded extensive consultations, first of all of course, with the host Romanian Weightlifting Federation. After discussion and upon request of President Nicu Vlad of the Romanian Weightlifting Federation, the Executive Board has agreed to accept the cancellation of the 2020 IWF Junior World Championships in Bucharest, Romania as a precaution due to the ongoing development COVID19. The cancellation will include the Committee meetings and Congress as well. Please kindly note the above and will let you know of further developments as soon as possible."

Czech and Norwegian visit at IWF

Delegates of the Czech and Norwegian Weightlifting Federations visited the IWF Secretariat’s office in Budapest this week and sit together with Dr Tamas Ajan and Attila Adamfi to talk about ways of co-operation between the IWF and the National Federations. [caption id="attachment_29180" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Ladislav Pastor, Petr Krol, Attila Adamfi, Dr Tamas Ajan[/caption] Petr Krol, IWF Vice President and Czech Weightlifting Federation President accompanied by his right-hand man Ladislav Pasztor, National Coach and  CWE Head of the International Committee reported on current matters of the federation, and exchanged ideas about the upcoming national-level events, Junior World Championships and Tokyo 2020. “We had several important topics to talk about: we gave an update to Dr Ajan on several matters including our plans with the Visegrad 4.” “As a Membership Commission member, I received useful information from the Secretariat that helps me prepare for the next Commission meeting.” [caption id="attachment_29179" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Stian Grimseth, Petr Krol and Dr Tamas Ajan[/caption] Stian Grimseth, President of the Norwegian Weightlifting Federation and IWF Marketing Commission member joined the three gentlemen on the second day of the meetings. “Norway has a great new generation of Youth and Junior weightlifters. We do our best to grow our sport in the country and organise more competitions in the future.” “We are planning to organize a World Championships in 2025 or 2026 and seek our governments support to do so.” “Norwegian weightlifting is continuously improving, and the IWF Development Program has an important role in this. In the framework of the program, we can train more and better-educated coaches.” “We have a whole new coaching program. Zygmunt Smalcerz, legendary Olympic champion recently joined us to help with the training of the national team” – summed up the meeting Mr

1st East Asian Championships Postponed

The 1st East Asian Championships that was due to be held 27.02. - 01.03. in Seoul, Republic of Korea was postponed by the Organizing Committee, considering the various travel and health restrictions introduced in the area to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. A new date for the competition is yet