USA Weightlifting will send its strongest team ever to Paris 2024.
When it comes to the five American lifters heading to Paris, the stats speak for themselves. Four of the five lifters are ranked in the top five in their weight classes. Two of them are the No. 2 juniors and one is the No. 1 seed. That’s a historic trove of talent for the U.S. heading into the Olympics.
The team* includes three new Olympians. Hampton Morris (61kg) Olivia Reeves (71kg) and Mary Theissen Lappen (+81kg), and two athletes returning to the Olympics: Jordan Delacruz (49kg) and Wes Kitt (102kg).
The team is led by a pair of gold medal contenders that USA Weightlifting calls “the two best young weightlifters on the planet.” The dynamic athlete is 20-year-old Morris, who made history in April when she lifted 176 kg in the clean and jerk, setting a new world record in the 61 kg weight class at the 2024 IWF World Cup. Reeves, 21, followed suit, sweeping the podium in the 71 kg weight class and setting three American records: 118 kg in the snatch, 150 kg in the clean and jerk and 268 kg total.
Mike Gattone, USA Weightlifting’s senior director of sports performance, highlighted the team’s strength against the highest level of international competition, saying, “They are striving and achieving the numbers necessary to be internationally competitive and compete with the best in the world for podium spots.”
Read on to find out more about this powerful US team.
*Because National Olympic Committees have the exclusive right to represent their country at the Olympic Games, an athlete’s participation in Paris will depend on their country’s NOC selecting an athlete to represent their country at Paris 2024.
