Weightlifter Turcotte a step closer to Sydney

DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette

Maryse Turcotte says she isn't yet counting the days, but if she needs a little help, it is precisely 151 days until the opening ceremony of the XXVII Olympic Games, where she will stride to the platform of the Sydney Convention Centre and make Canadian weightlifting history.

The 25-year-old member of Brossard's Obelix club pretty much wrote her ticket to Sydney during the weekend at the NACACI continental championships in Shreveport, La., and, barring injury, will represent her country when women make their Olympic weightlifting debut.

Competing in the 58-kilogram class, the 1999 Pan American Games gold medalist finished second to Mexico's Soyora Jimenez, her snatch lift of 85 kg and 112.5 kg in the clean-and-jerk giving her a total of 197.5. Jimenez, who finished second to Turcotte at the Pan Ams, was at the top of her game, lifting a total of 210 kg, 2.5 kg more than Turcotte's Commonwealth-record best.

But more importantly, the seven-woman Canadian team won the over-all competition, having needed only a top-3 finish in the meet of North American, Central American and Caribbean island nations to qualify one women's spot for Sydney. Ranked light-years ahead of any other Canadian lifter based on the Sinclair ranking system, which compares athletes of all weights relative to world records, Turcotte surely will fill that spot.

"I'm very happy, even though I can't say officially that I'm on the team yet," said Turcotte, who competed Saturday and flew home yesterday, missing the final day of the meet to prepare for two exams she has today at Universite du Quebec a Montreal.

"I was hoping to win my weight class on the weekend, but I was working so hard for school the past week, I was there physically, but not mentally."

It's possible that she'll be joined in Sydney by Sebastien Groulx of Drummondville, an Obelix teammate. But for Groulx, who lifts at 69 kg, Sydney is far from guaranteed.

Both he and Toronto's 105-kg Akos Sandor competed at the NACACI meet on Canada's eight-man squad, which finished second - a top-4 placing was required to earn one Olympic berth. Groulx and Sandor are within a handful of points of each other on the Sinclair chart, meaning Canada's male lifter to the Games won't be decided until next month's national championships in Vancouver, B.C. - and even then probably by mere grams, not kilograms.

Turcotte will have a chance to even the score with Jimenez at the UQaM sports centre June 9-11 during the third World University Championships, in many ways an Olympic preview.

"I will try to kick myself in the (behind) and beat her in Montreal," said Turcotte, who has won silver medals at this meet the past two years. "Originally, I was supposed to lift there just for fun, since it's not an Olympic qualifier, but now I'll take it more seriously and be more aggressive knowing she'll be here."

Among the confirmed entries is Russian superheavyweight Andrei Chemerkin, the 1996 Olympic gold medalist who lifts at 105+ kg and is considered the strongest man on the planet. His world record clean-and-jerk is 262.5 kg - more than 578 pounds.

"Chemerkin is the Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan of our sport, rolled into one," said Pierre Bergeron Jr., the coach of Turcotte and Groulx and co-ordinator of the world meet.

Chemerkin is by far the most powerful Russian to lift here since Vasili Alexeev, the legendary 1976 Montreal Olympic gold medalist.

More than 130 athletes from 19 countries are entered, including Chinese, Russians, Americans, Japanese, Greeks and Koreans. The 15-athlete Chinese team features several junior and senior world record-holders.

- For more information on the World University Championships in Montreal, call Pierre Bergeron Jr. at (514) 252-3046 or visit www.fedhaltero.qc.ca and follow the link to the meet.

Reprinted with permission

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