I can not express the amount of stress that led up to Nefi, my wife, competing in the European Weightlifting Championships. Nefi and I have not had even half of a nights sleep in more than 10 days. The best (and only) luck that we have had is the fact that we have survived. I don't know of any other way to put it.

The night before the competition, Nefi went to bed around 70 KG with little food or water. We made the mistake of drinking mineral water with our dinner Saturday night instead of baby water (we had to walk a long doggone way in the rain to get to any store) so we got to the venue several hours early. She took every responsible measure to drop weight and then we started making friends, which got her on the right path.

She stepped on the scale at 68.9 kg, making the 69 kg class! Her two opponents are the best in the world right now, but we had two specific goals:

  1. Get IN the meet and break competition PRs

  2. Qualify for Worlds with a 102 kg total

Not knowing how she would perform on the big stage we opened light on snatch:

39 kg — good. We decided she would go to 41 kg. If that was easy, we could go to 44-46 and take a risk on the third attempt.

41 kg — somehow lost it behind her head once she got the down signal. Three reds.

43 kg — smoke-show! She had so much more in her, but this leaves our 102 kg shot a possibility.

Warm ups for clean and jerk went well so we opened with an easy weight:

50 kg — very easy. We decided to make a reasonable jump to the second attempt, given how easy this one was.

54 kg — another easy lift. By this point, the crowd was really starting to get into her performance. She had to make the decision to go up a little or to take a huge risk and go for a 102 total. She would need a huge PR to get the total.

59 KG — she smoked it! I cried during the entire lift. You can tell on the video that I was not even able to speak. It was all a blur for me, but I gave her the biggest hug afterwards. You can see on the video that I didn’t even stop recording; I just took off running towards her.

The first call Nefi got was from our son, Steven. He was so excited and had been watching the entire competition live online. There are so many people that made this possible both in training and in today alone. I will thank them, each and every one in person.