Well it's after midnight and hear I am at the computer again. Today we only had 2 lifters so it was a relatively easy day, as coaching goes over here.
We started with our first lifter, Beverly Crawford, she is only 1 of the 2 lifters that aren't from either Wisconsin or Texas. Beverly lifts in the 148lb class and to make it even a little easier her own coach was able to make the trip along with her mother.
Have I said anything yet about struggling in the squats? Oh, yeah...just about every post. Well Beverly held true to form for the Americans and was able to complete her opening attempt. The next two squats were red lighted for lack of depth. Nice though that Beverly took pity on the poor tired coaching staff who had worked so hard the day before and posted 3 very nice benchpresses and had now finished 2nd in both disciplines...and Beverly was a puller, her best lift was still to come, this might just be a chance at gold...to hear our anthem again!
Well remember that only 1 squat business...that came back to haunt her and even though she pulled great...a 162.5kilo (358lb) deadlift for a gold medal in the deadlift, it was still not enough to beat out Ekaterina Kotova....Name sound familiar? Well it should....you all know who she is.....a Russian! So you know what that means! Yep. Boom, Russian National Anthem....
Not again, I had hoped I could actually get a new melody in my head today...I had even started singing B-I-N-G-O just in an effort to eliminate that damned anthem, and now here I was again along with the rest of the staff standing for the Russian National Anthem. Things just have to get better!
Our other lifter today was Charles McDonald...we have moved Zach Garza to the 82.5kilo class in a effort to get him a better chance at making the podium, hopefully it works as one of the top Ukrainians had also made a move out of that class to the 75kilo class to get away from our American, Jesse Norris. This may work very well. But that leaves Charles(Chaz) to go against 2 Ukraines and a Russian by himself.
Chaz would squat very well, going 3 for 3, unusual for this team so far...but this would set him up and keep him within the sights of the newly planted Ukraine and of course the Russian. We knew Chaz would probably fall back a little as bench is not necessarily his best lift, but the question of the day would be, could he stay close enough to the top 2 lifters to make a play for the top spot on the podium.
Well pull as he may, and he did, Chaz did finish on top of the podium for the deadlift, but would not be able to pull enough to better his 3rd place position overall. And of course you all know what that means if you have bean reading any of this mess I have been putting out here...Boom! Ukraine national anthem...got ya didn't I?!
Well it's late, I have to get my kicks somehow! :)
By the way, I did get to travel outside of the walls of the hotel today with my 2 Idaho lifters and we visited a very small little Czech Italian Restaurant...yes, I did write that. They served a variety of pizzas and spaghetti and other Italian dishes, even breakfast items. The 3 of us did invite Nick Laznovsky our 148lb lifter to tag along and lucky for us he did. While we all munched down our Salmon/Spinach pizza and our Artichoke/Spinach pizza and Kenzie's pick the Popeye the Sailor pizza...Spinach, Bacon, Chicken and fried egg.....awesome pizza by the way, went back later with the coaching staff and ate more of this kind. Great flavor!!!
Well anyway, I regressed there for a minute...while we were eating our pizzas Nick decides to order chocolate filled pancakes. Well, whatever Nick, you can order a breakfast if you like. That's okay. So rich even this 18 year old could not get more that one of the 3 rolled very thin pancakes down. And to top it all off we awarded Nick with the "Quote of the Week" so far:
"I really can't believe we flew across the ocean and we are really here!"
I know this doesn't sound like much, but at the time had we of all just taken a drink it would have been coming out of our noses...it was classic Nick!
I also have a feeling the waitress, although she had to manage with our lack of local language skills, she didn't mind the tips...and then when I brought the coaching staff back in an hour before they were supposed to close and with 5 people we ordered 10 pizzas, all different of course, although frustrated with us again, she liked those tips as well... and invited us back :)
Almost forgot current team scores:
Girls - Russia 65 points Boys - Russia 54 points
Ukraine 53 points USA 50 points
USA 45 points Ukraine 28 points
Japan 26 points Japan 18 points
Poland 14 points Poland 17 points
France 12 points (had to give them their credit)
Keep in mind the scoring only counts the top 6 finishes of each team so thing could change drastically over the next few days. Keep checking back! Good night.
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