JOSH WILKINSON/LIFTINGLIFEAmerica usually do pretty well at the Olympics, but there’s one event that they have struggled with in recent years – weightlifting.
American men haven’t won an Olympic weightlifting medal since 1984, when the Soviet Super Men decided to stay home. That was nice of them.
But a 15-year-old boy from small-town Carolina is raising hopes this might all be about to change.
STEPHEN B. MORTON/WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGESC.J. Cummings set a new record at the 2015 USA Weightlifting National Championships, and he’s causing a storm in the world of competitive weightlifting. In a sport where athletes usually peak in their mid to late 20s, he’s already lifted more than any grown American man in his professional weight class has ever done before.
And he’s already competing against athletes as old as 20.
He’s been given the obvious comparisons to other famous American athletes, and has been called both the ‘LeBron James’ and ‘Michael Jordan’ of weightlifting.
STEPHEN B. MORTON/THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES fCummings is still a high-school sophomore. He lives with his parents and trains an hour or two a day.
When asked if he hoped to travel with the US team to the Rio Olympics next year he quickly replied ‘yes, sir’.
