An Interview with Danny Camargo Senior International USA Weightlifting Coach, Daniel Camargo brings decades of experience as an athlete as well as a coach to his incisive thoughts about the sport. His athlete Mattie Rogers competes at the 2017 IWF World Weightlifting Championships on Saturday. Daniel Kunitz is the author of LIFT: Fitness Culture from Naked Greeks and Amazons to Jazzercise and Ninja Warriors. DK: When did you start to see a change in the popularity of weightlifting? DC: When my phone began ringing for the first time–this was 2012. Ahead of the actual fact that it was growing there was the perception that it was growing. There were a lot of discussions in the community, some formal, some informal. In 2012, I disagreed that the sport was growing: I felt that what was growing was the awareness of the movements, because of CrossFit, that there were more and more practitioners…
Speaking of Weightlifting
A Conversation with Phil Andrews and Kevin Farley This interview is the first in a series I will post during the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships in Anaheim, California. It took place about three weeks prior to the event. Phil Andrews is Chief Executive Officer of USA Weightlifting. Kevin Farley is Director of Membership, Communications & Digital Marketing. Daniel Kunitz is the author of LIFT: Fitness Culture from Naked Greeks and Amazons to Jazzercise and Ninja Warriors. Daniel Kunitz: I know anecdotally that weightlifting is growing in the United States, but do you have any statistics? Phil Andrews: At the time of the 2012 Olympic Games, we had about 11,000 members and by the end of the 2016 Olympic Games we had about 26,000. We were the fastest growing sport of the Olympic movement in that quadrennial: the other three were rugby, lacrosse, and archery. To be fair, rugby and lacrosse grew…
Weightlifting on the Rise
An essay I wrote on weightlifting, looking toward the 2017 World Weightlifting Championships. Unfortunately, it’s behind a pay wall.
Ignorance Speaks
Australian Tia Clair Toomey is truly extraordinary athlete. For the second year in a row she was named the Second Fittest Woman on the planet, by her placement in the Crossfit Games, a grueling five-day, 17-event test across numerous fitness domains. Then, a couple of weeks after this competition, she represented Australia at the Olympics in the weightlifting competition. How enviable is her achievement? So much so that some wanker at The Sydney Morning Herald, in a fog of foolishness, ripped into Toomey for being “only the 14th strongest” woman in the 58kg class. Consider that when America’s Morghan King placed sixth out of twelve competing in the 48kg class, it was roundly considered a triumph. Yet King–a fantastic athlete–trains only for weightlifting; she does Itwo lifts: the snatch and the clean-and-jerk. To be a Crossfit athlete, Toomey trains an insane array of movements and modalities, from track and field…
Lifting news
Here’s a cool article on how Crossfit expanded the ranks of weightlifters. Both my book and I make an appearance. If the link above doesn’t work, copy and past this into your browser: http://www.nbcolympics.com/news/crossfit-hoists-olympic-weightlifting-public-eye