Etta Love, 13, wins three medals at the Canadian Junior Weightlifting Championships
When Etta Love was about four, she began tagging along with her mom, Emma, to her CrossFit classes.
A couple of years later she was doing the CrossFit classes herself. And what really intrigued Etta was the weight training.
“Every time that I saw that our workout included anything with a barbell, I was so happy and wanted to go early,” Love told Saskatoon Morning’s Jennifer Quesnel. “So, I jumped at the chance. I just can’t remember any time in my life without a barbell.”
By the age of nine Love was squatting 45 kilograms (100 pounds). Now, she’s 13 and competing on the national stage.
Winning championship medals
Love won three medals — a silver and two bronzes — and set a pair of personal bests this past weekend, when she represented Saskatchewan at the Canadian Junior Weightlifting Championships. Her medals were for lifting: 105 kilograms in the clean and jerk category (lifting a barebell to chest level and then over one’s head); 78 kilograms in the snatch (lifting from the floor to over one’s head in one motion); and 87 kilograms in the overall category.
The championships were a virtual competition with lifters across Canada in their home gyms.
Love has become serious about the sport in the last couple of years and is now being coached by Aimee Everett, a U.S. international level coach based in Redmond, Oregon, about 210 kilometres southwest of the state capital Salem.
Love sent a letter to Everett, who has about 24 years of experience, explaining why she wanted her as a coach.
“The gym has become my getaway from any problems,” Love said in the letter. “No matter what is going on or what I am feeling I can process it better when I lift. I have had some difficult times recently and weightlifting has always been there as an escape. It gives my life purpose.”
“When I lift I feel free. Weightlifting keeps me in tune with who I am. To make lifts I have to trust myself so I am brave when I lift but also vulnerable. Weightlifting embodies what I want in my life: Purpose, freedom, trust, truth and sacredness. Weightlifting is a sanctuary.”
Love said having a high-level female coach is great because it’s “someone who’s so knowledgeable about how to coach females.”
The importance of female role models
She said having a female role model is very important.
“It’s hard to imagine yourself in a sport if you haven’t ever seen anyone like you.”
Weightlifting has helped her in many ways.
“I think as a teenage girl, we’re often told in the world not to trust our own bodies. And I think that one of the things that weightlifting does is I have to listen to the cues my body gives me if I want to lift heavy and if I want to do well in the sport,” Love said.
“I’m a really big over thinker. And when I go to the barbell, I just find it’s the only time where I can have really clear, like single thoughts.”
Starting a demanding sport like weightlifting at such a young age might lead some to make an early exit, but Love said she is trying to build a solid base.
“I think most sports people can start at a very young age as long as they focus on the right things and build a good platform, a good foundation to continue the sport.
“I think that weightlifting can be really good for kids, but I don’t think that you need to go as heavy as you can to love the sport.”
Love’s goal now is to break some provincial records, but it’s also about the personal journey of becoming better in many ways.
“My goal is to continue building the best platform, continue improving my technique and making myself the best athlete I can be, which of course includes PRs (personal records), but it also includes technique, work and mindset, which is where I feel like I can grow the most.”