The Power and Grace Performance team just returned home from USA Weightlifting’s Junior (20U) Nationals in Kansas City, Missouri where the ladies weightlifting team had a incredibly fun and successful weekend!
Jessie Bradley, former Olympic Training Center resident and one of the newer members to the Power & Grace Performance team was competing in her final Junior Nationals. She went into the weekend with the entire season on the line. In addition to the goal of winning her last Junior Championship, she needed a solid total to qualify for both the Junior Pan-Am and World 
Championship Teams. She knew exactly what she needed and executed with precision. After Snatching 91kg, she entered the Clean & Jerk 1kg out of 1st place and in perfect position to hit the 205 total we predicted would put her on the International teams. She secured her spot on the teams with a 114kg Clean & Jerk on her 2nd attempt, but she still needing to make the final lift of the session at 117kg to win the meet. She fought through an extremely difficult clean, recovered, and smoked the Jerk to secure gold and total 208kg. We are excited to have Jessie with us going forward, and even more excited for her to get back to breaking more National Records!
Jourdan Delacruz, another former Olympic Training Center resident, was defending her 2016 Jr title and looking to improve her overall rankings on the international teams. While she was already qualified for the teams, it was still an important meet for her to improve those rankings and battle test some of the things we’ve been working on in training in a competition setting. Jourdan had a sub optimal day in the Snatch, only hitting her 1st weight at 77kg, but went on to put on a show in 
the Clean & Jerk. She opened easily at 98kg, 3kg over her previous American Record. She then put away another easy lift at 101kg, 6kg over her previous record. Her final lift was at 103kg, where she hit yet another easy clean and locked out the jerk only to have her back foot slide a few inches ultimately costing her to the lift. Had it not been for a platform that saw a number of slips throughout the weekend, she would have been looking at a 8kg American Record! But she would be the first to admit that a slightly better position would have resulted in a good lift. Her 178kg total gave her a 35kg victory over 2nd place in the total, and also broke her previous total record by 4kg. While there was a ton of room for improvement in the snatch and a heartbreaking miss in the clean & jerk, the rest of the year is looking promising! She is the only female lifter on the Jr. Pan-Am team in the #1 projected rank, and still has one more year as a Junior in 2018.
With the addition of Sarah Rawley, one of the team’s up an coming young 48kg lifters, Power & Grace Performance would have finished 3rd with only 3 lifters, had we entered a team. Almost every competition finishes with thoughts of what could have been, and the girls had a few of those each andt they still managed to reach the top of the podium. It’s always best not to focus on what could have been, but what will be, and he future for these young women is bright, as is the future of Power and Grace Performance.
Lastly, we have to commend USA Weightlifting on yet another stellar National Championship. They continue to improve every year. I mentioned the slick platform earlier, and that was literally the only thing that could have improved, and it wasn’t an issue for perfect lifts. The new partnership with Rogue was in full affect, and their setup of the warmup area and training halls were excellent and rivaled some of the best setups we’ve seen internationally. It’s an exciting time to be in weightlifting!
By: Chris