Have you ever seen people who lift a ton of weight and you ask yourself, “How do they do that?” Well there are students at Beaver Area whom you can ask!

January 12, four Beaver Area students travelled to Bridgeville to compete in an Olympic lifting competition at Pittsburgh Barbell.

The Beaver Area students’ team originates out of an area gym you may know: Country Strong. The gym is located in Industry and is home to the Country Strong weightlifting team. Many Beaver Area athletes—as well as those from other area schools—train at Country Strong.

The team is coached by Tim Griesser an experienced strength coach.

“We’re using this meet to tune up for two national meets coming up in February and March,” explained Coach Griesser.

Each meet consists of two lifts: the snatch and clean and jerk. The participants gets three attempts at each lift at the weight of their choosing. The judges will give the lifter a red light or white light: red light meaning no lift and white light meaning good lift. At the end of the meet the highest weight between the two lifts is added together for a total score.

For this meet the team consisted of seniors Louis Charlier and Chelsea Homan, junior Lexi Russel, and freshman Jacob Hilton.

Homan started out the competition weighing in at 7 a.m. and lifting at 9 a.m. She went four for six missing one snatch and one clean and jerk. Totaling at 99 kg (217.8 lbs.) she placed third in her weight and age group.

Next up was Russel weighing in at 9 a.m. and lifting at 11 a.m. She went three for six missing one snatch and two clean and jerks. Totaling 128 kg (281.6 lbs.) she placed first. Russel was attempting to qualify for junior nationals at this meet but unfortunately did not reach the qualifying weight total she needed.

“It was very fun and a good experience to build on. Even though I didn’t achieve my goal I’m ready to keep training, get better, and hopefully get it next time,” stated Russel.

Lastly, Charlier and Hilton ended the day weighing at 11 a.m. and lifting at 1 p.m. Charlier went three for six missing one snatch and two clean and jerks with a 270 kg (594 lbs.) total receiving first place.

Charlier commented, “I had a great time. I didn’t have to worry about qualifying for anything, so I just went out and had fun and did what I do.”

Hilton went five for six missing one clean and jerk. He totaled 153 kg (336.6 lbs.) for the day also winning a first-place medal.

Junior Alec Coulter who also is a member of the team unfortunately did not compete in this competition do to a thumb injury.

“The Pittsburgh Winter Open was a great showing for our team! Everyone hit some nice PR’s (personal records), took home some hardware . . . This team puts in so much hard work, and the results on the platform show that to everyone who isn’t there on a day-to-day basis to watch them train,” proudly commented Coach Griesser.