Weighing in on Beijing

U.S.-record holder from Arnold pumped up for Olympics

By Mike Klingaman | Sun reporter

July 13, 2008

Lift. Grunt. Clang.

Lift. Grunt. Clang.

So it goes, day after day, week after week in the world of Natalie Woolfolk, Olympic weightlifter.

Her life revolves around the sight of heaving muscles and the sound of heavy metal. Beijing beckons next month, and Woolfolk, a 24-year-old Marylander and U.S.-record holder, is heeding the call.

Her sights are set on the Games. Woolfolk is getting married this fall, but the only China pattern in her thoughts has five interlocking circles.

"She's totally focused," said her sister Haley DiBlasi, of Eldersburg. "I'll call Nat to hear some wedding talk, and she'll say, 'Yeah, we're taking care of that.' Then she starts in on the Olympics."

For nearly six years Woolfolk has worked toward this, living and learning at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo. Like a college freshman, she resides in a dorm, eats dining-hall fare - and spends her time pumping more iron than the Maryland football team.

"When people ask me what I do, I say I lift heavy things over my head all day," said Woolfolk, a graduate of Broadneck in Anne Arundel County. "It sounds silly, but really, what do [ the Orioles] do? They throw a ball around all day."

The payoff: Woolfolk earned a berth on the U.S. team in May. She's a national weight-class champion in the snatch, an event that involves hoisting a barbell over one's head from the floor in a single movement.

Woolfolk weighs 135 pounds. Her record in the snatch is 220.

"It's technique more than brute strength," she said. "Done correctly, you don't even feel it. You're used to having weights evenly distributed on a bar. But ask me to lift a bag of potatoes when I'm not focused, and it feels heavy."

Woolfolk took to the gym in eighth grade, when her father, Kirk Woolfolk - the strength and conditioning coach at the Naval Academy - convinced her to try the sport.

Woolfolk nearly walked away.

"I was terrified," she said.

It wasn't the thought of back-breaking lifts that scared her. It was the fear of the girl from Arnold becoming a Schwarzenegger.

"I didn't want to become 'Helga,' this huge woman who looks like a man and has a beard," she said.

On the other hand, the mystique of weightlifting caught Woolfolk's fancy.

"I always wanted to be stronger than boys," she said. "For the most part, I was a sweet little girly girl. But get me fired up and I could be spunky."

Even at 7, when her sport was gymnastics, she liked showing how tough a girl could be.

"My 9-year-old brother, Nolan, would invite his friends over and dare them to hit me in the stomach," she said. "I could flex my abs, so it didn't hurt. Their knuckles kind of bounced off."

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Weighing in on Beijing

U.S.-record holder from Arnold pumped up for Olympics

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Weighing in on Beijing

U.S.-record holder from Arnold pumped up for Olympics

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