04/19/24
June 20, 2012
"He's in pain, he's risking his career... and he's doing it for someone else.": Olympic lifting is not the easiest of endeavours. Getting 157 kilos over your head would be a challenge at the best of times. But imagine, for a moment, you were trying to execute a clean and jerk with a torn quadracep that has left you barely able to walk. Would you do that to qualify for the Olympics?
Would you do that for someone else to qualify? Tevita Ngalu did.
I am not a professional weightlifter, but I've spent some time doing it (at very low weights) and its a whole body thing at almost every stage. He's certainly engaging his quadriceps during the jerk - particularly for stability and balance. The coach characterizes what Ngalu did as a "one legged clean and jerk." That gives me the shivers just thinking about it.
"Absolutely astounding" sums it up perfectly. My jaw literally dropped when I watched that second attempt.
posted by Joey Michaels at 10:08 PM on June 20, 2012
"Absolutely astounding" sums it up perfectly.
But I used the word "absolitely," which is apparently one better. Because typos show that you care.
posted by tahoemoj at 12:08 PM on June 21, 2012
I support "absolitely" being made part of the official SportsFilter style guide.
posted by Joey Michaels at 06:33 AM on June 22, 2012
Pretty cool, and an absolutely mind-boggling case of fighting through pain. I tore a quadriceps playing hockey in high school, and couldn't walk on it without a hip-to-ankle brace for over five months. I couldn't skate on it or fully bend it for over nine months. That guy just lifted the equivalent of a freakin' Volkswagen from off of the ground to over his head with a "badly" torn quad. Watching the first attempt, I was surprised that he failed when he did, in the "jerk" portion of the lift. I'm not a weightlifter, but I would think that the greatest stress on the quad would be the first motion, from ground to chest. He failed in the second motion, from chest to above the head. But regardless of where he failed before getting the weight up, it's absolitely astounding that he did it.