Jourdan Delacruz competes in the snatch at the 2019 World Weightlifting Championships in Sept. 2019 in Pattaya, Thailand.
Time is ticking down to the end of the Olympic weightlifting qualifying period on April 30, and several Team USA athletes helped their cause with record-setting and medal-winning performances at this week’s qualification event in Rome.
Eight Team USA athletes took home 21 medals in the Rome Weightlifting World Cup, a silver-level event for the purposes of Olympic qualifying. Weightlifters get a 1.05 multiplier for silver events to their ROBI score that is the basis for Olympic qualification.
Jourdan Delacruz (49 kg.) turned in the finest performance for Team USA, not only winning across the board but also setting an American record in snatch (87 kg.) and American and Pan American records in clean & jerk (108 kg.) and total (195 kg.). She is now the first woman to hold all three American records in two different bodyweights simultaneously (49 and 55 kg.) since 1994.
Three Americans completed a trio of silver medals: Jessie Bradley in the non-Olympic 81 kg. weight class, 2016 Olympian Morghan King in 49 kg. and Harrison Maurus at 81 kg. Sarah Wright earned a bronze medal in snatch at 55 kg.
Two other American women won gold medals in non-Olympic weight classes. Meredith Alwine (71 kg.) swept the golds in snatch, clean & jerk and total while Cecily Kyle (45 kg.) took the gold medals in clean & jerk and total, and silver in snatch. Travis Cooper earned a bronze medal in clean & jerk and total in the non-Olympic 89 kg.
One notable absence from competition was 2017, 2018 and 2019 world medalist Mattie Rogers, who was on the start list to make her debut in Olympic qualification at 87 kg., a huge jump given that she competed at 71 kg. at the world championships in September and has never gone higher than 76 kg. in international competition. Rogers successfully made weight, enabling her to use the meet toward the Olympic qualification requirements of entering at least six events throughout the 18-month window – with two of them being in the same Olympic category, but opted not to compete.
Todd Kortemeier is a sportswriter, editor and children’s book author from Minneapolis. He is a contributor to TeamUSA.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.
