PARIS– A burly weightlifter lifts a 300-pound barbell and quickly drops it to the floor, causing the crowd to cheer. Before another competitor can take their turn, a handful of people seated nearby rush up the stairs and onto the stage to reposition themselves.
They remove washers and screw new ones on either side, clean the bar and position it in the perfect spot. Every few attempts, someone wipes down the platform like a basketball court. The weight attempts change on the fly during the competition, so they are constantly being asked to make multiple adjustments.
Weightlifting would not be possible at the 2024 Paris Olympics or anywhere else without loaders, who play a role similar to pit crews changing tires and refueling race cars. It’s a fast, important job to ensure the bar is quickly at the weight it should be and that the world’s best lifters have optimal conditions to do what they’ve spent the last four years training for.
“The priority is to stay calm because if you are not calm you will rush and make a lot of mistakes,” loader Jessy Graillot told the Associated Press on Thursday. “We have to stay calm and communicate a lot with the team. We all have work to do and we know what to do.”
Graillot is one of 14 bodybuilders at the Paris Games, all from France’s under-23 and under-20 weightlifting teams. Many of them did a test competition to get a feel for the responsibility, and the entire mixed group, evenly split between seven men and seven women, had two hours of training before the weightlifting began on Wednesday.
“We just practiced how to load the barbell, what protocols we have to follow so that everything is perfect and looks perfect too, because it’s the Olympics, so everything has to be in order,” said loader Lea Marie Antonio. “They told us that there have been no mistakes since London 2012, so no mistakes have been made loading the barbells since 2012 at the Olympics. I think if we don’t make a mistake, we can call it a good night.”
Avoiding mistakes in a major international competition is obviously stressful, but Laurène Fauvel doesn’t see it as pressure. Her biggest problem is when she and her colleagues are criticized by Olympic weightlifters or fans on social media when someone makes a slip-up.
“Some athletes or the public say, ‘Oh, the chargers don’t clean well,'” Fauvel said. “It only affects 1% of the public, but it’s sad to get that feedback.”
There were slip-ups on the first day of weightlifting, said Hampton Morris after becoming the first American to win an Olympic medal in the sport in 40 years. But he said the problem was the color of the Paris 2024 logo. There’s nothing the loaders can do about that.
They may not win medals, but they have a sense of whether they are doing a good job at a particular time.
“I think it’s more a matter of feeling,” says 21-year-old Graillot. “When we make mistakes and are in a hurry, we don’t feel safe. When we feel safe, I think that’s a success.”
Just getting here is a victory, and the French Weightlifting Federation wants athletes to experience the Olympics up close. Fauvel enjoys observing the rituals of the weightlifters and has learned more about the rules by speaking to experienced judges who have been judging for decades.
“They wanted us to actually see what it’s like to compete in the Olympics and what we’re actually working for. That’s why they put us on the team,” said Antonio, a 19-year-old from eastern France.
Graillot, who trains with Antonio, sees parallels to pit crews in car racing – only they need more patience to do it right.
“Maybe we can compare it because we are a team and everyone has a job to do,” he said. “But it is much calmer. We don’t have to be in such a rush like in racing.”
It’s an important but also fun job for the French weightlifters, who hope to one day compete in the Olympic Games themselves – perhaps in Los Angeles in 2028 or Brisbane in 2032. Yamm Thomasson said of the time he had: “C’est magnifique.”
“You feel all the chemistry of the Olympic Games,” Thomasson said in French, with Graillot translating. “It’s a wonderful opportunity. It only comes once in a lifetime.”
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
