Champion weightlifter Donny Shankle says the competition isn’t over until the last clean and jerk comes down.
Gloria was 6 kilos behind the leader after missing two of her three snatch attempts.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spied her competitor dancing all over the platform like a newborn baby giraffe as she jerked.
“Chicken legs,” Gloria whispered under her breath with a sneering half smile.
She was up. Her coach opened her up at the exact same weight as the girl in front of her in the snatch. After tightening her belt and taking a few slaps on the legs from her coach, she went out there and killed it.
On her second attempt, her coach called for a weight that would put her 3 kilos above everyone else in the clean and jerk. She cleaned the bar yet again with such ease that you could hear the crowd sigh in amazement. Her dip and drive was so fast you would have missed it had you blinked. Gloria was down under the bar with a startling crack of her lead foot that reverberated like a cat-o-nine-tails lashed across a criminal’s back.
Gloria was now only 3 kilos back of the leader. Anyone in the crowd not showing an interest at the start was all eyeballs and ears as she walked up to the bar for her final attempt.
Remember, snatches are cute, but clean and jerks win.