Going for Gold

LAKEWOOD RANCH — Riley Bohan was playing a game of numbers.

In the back of her mind, the Lakewood Ranch High junior lifter knew what she needed to hit to push her competition to the edge.

After increasing her weight by only three kilograms after her first clean and jerk, the 16-year-old responded by adding an additional five kilograms (10 pounds) to her third and final lift — an increase nearly unheard of in women’s competition.

With 86 kilograms now on the bar, a weight she had never attempted in competition, Bohan knew if she secured the lift then her competitors would be forced to increase their weight as well.

Bohan hit her final attempt and stood back and waited, hoping the extra weight would be too much for her competition.

The risk paid off. Bohan hit a new personal best lift of 86 kilograms to capture the gold medal in the clean and jerk in the 58 kilogram, 16 to 17 age group of the USA Weightlifting National Youth Championships earlier this summer, in Daytona Beach.

“Clean and jerk was a fight, but I don’t really feel things when I’m competing,” Bohan says. “I don’t really let my nerves get to me.”

With the win in the clean and jerk, Bohan also won the gold medal for the overall total, having secured the gold medal in the snatch earlier in the four-day competition.

“I’m really proud of the overall total gold medal because the best lifter has the gold in total,” Bohan says. “Being a specialist is pretty cool, but the total is the most (important).”

After a communication mix-up early on in the snatch prevented her from making her first attempt, Bohan hit her second attempt of 62 kilograms. But it wasn’t until after she missed her final attempt and the competition was over that Bohan realized she had secured the gold medal.

“It was relief,” Bohan says of making her second attempt. “From the look on my face, though, you wouldn’t have known (I won). It didn’t look good. I thought I only secured silver, so when I found out afterward, it was a nice surprise.”

Following the national meet, Bohan was one of 20 lifters from across the country invited to the United States Olympic Training Center to participate in an elite Youth Junior Camp July 24 through July 30, in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The camp is designed to allow up-and-coming athletes to train together and improve their skills and technique while building relationships with potential future world and Olympic team members.

“I was pretty happy about it,” Bohan says of being selected. “It was fun to go to the OTC. Some of the lifters who were there had just gotten back from worlds. Here you’re a big fish in a little pond, but that’s definitely not the case at the OTC.”

The term mental toughness took on a whole new meaning for Bohan and the other lifters. The training was unlike anything she had experienced.

“I learned you just have to let your body adapt,” Bohan says. “The volume they throw at you in terms of workouts at the OTC is very steep. You’re basically there to eat, train and sleep. When you can get past that, it turns out to be a really fun and good experience. Most people are mentally sore by the end instead of physically sore.”

With her second national meet behind her, Bohan will spend the next few months competing in small local meets in preparation for the 2014 American Open Championships Dec. 12 through Dec. 15, in Washington, D.C.

“I would love to make a world team,” says Bohan, who qualified for the state weightlifting meet last year but had to pull out for another event at the OTC. “That’s a bucket-list goal. Right now, I’m just trying to see where it goes.

“I want to get bigger numbers and actually hit those numbers at competition, but I’m definitely taking it day by day,” Bohan says.

Contact Jen Blanco at [email protected].