American Open 2014: Judges

First of all, HUGE congrats to Team Power and Grace at the American Open. We all totaled and I think that is the first time all of my lifters made it through a meet without bombing. Goes to show that consistently making lifts in training means making lifts on the platform! Made lifts make lifts! The results were not only awesome but much improved over the competitions from the beginning of the year. Cherisse Kellemen finished 11th place with a 76kg Snatch and 86kg CJnMeghan Valentine finished 8th place with a 56kg Snatch and 70kg CJnI finished 7th with a 124kg snatch and a 142kg CJnSarabeth Phillips finished 1st with a 80kg Snatch and a 101 kg CJ
If no other teams had entered and we had put a team in, we would have gotten third place behind MDUSA and East Coast Gold. That’s awesome!
Anyways below is a bit of a rant/reality on judging at National and International meets.
I have always felt a bit slighted by the judges at weightlifting meets. What I mean by that is because I am so tall and because I am so skinny, I don’t have the shoulders or size to hide any shakiness in my elbows. What’s more, the lack of size in my upper body often causes my shoulders to shift up and down when I receive and recover from heavy jerks. My elbows may not bend but the shoulder movement often grabs the judges attention and keeps their antennas up for any other lifts that I complete. Even my silver medal clean and jerk from Nationals 2013 got one red light. For that reason I have never been a big fan of the judges. They always seem to be against me. (Though I know that isn’t true)
nThis year after hitting one of the heaviest snatches I’ve hit in recent competition history (124), the clean and jerks looked like more of the same. The same situation as Thailand happened again a week later. I felt like I crushed two out of three of the jerks on the platform. What’s more is that I felt my shoulders move but no elbow movement. After making 142 (by majority decision), I took 147 and it felt like the easiest jerk I’d done all day. The judges turned it down by majority decision. I flat missed my third attempt at 152 for a medal. When I watched the 147 full speed I got angry. Again the judges had robbed me of a good lift because of shoulder movement not elbows! I complained to Jasha Faye (my center judge) about the bad call and told him I would make a slo-mo video for him to prove my point. Shoulder movement isn’t grounds for a press-out! And just because my shoulders move doesn’t mean my elbows did! Jasha agreed that my shoulders did move and that wasn’t grounds for a failed lift BUT he noted that not only did I press out one elbow but BOTH of them. I was bound and determined to prove him wrong! See video here.
Jasha and the other judge who red-lighted me were right. And probably were reluctant to be right but were right nonetheless.
Bottomline, it’s hard to be a judge. There are so many factors that play into decisions. Their decision could make 6 months of training finalize in no total. Their decision could ruin dreams that people have chased hard for years. They might have to give red lights to their best friends. They might have to give red lights after a American Record lift goes down with the crowd going crazy behind them. These are all reasons I will never be a judge and have a huge amount of respect for those who are.
I missed the lift. I’ve missed a bunch in that way. Things will change. Coming up I’m going to be sharing some of my training logs and all of my goals as I try to make 2015 a lot more like 2013 than 2014. More goals, thoughts, ideas, and plans to come…