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2015 Pan Am Games Weightlifting *Doping News Update*

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pan am games logoThose where the 2015 Pan Am Games Weightlifting sessions.

Useful Links:

Doping News

Recordings

Update: All recordings have been taken down, currently looking for new ones. Meanwhile here are the winners.

Highlights

Fernando Reis All Lifts


Leidy Solis (69kg, Colombia) with her 145kg Clean & Jerk

Video of Luis Mosquera’s 150kg Snatch. Update: All Lifts.

Hookgrip Slow Mo

About Gregor Winter

Hi, I run ATG.

Follow me on instagram @gregorwinter (and ATG @atginsta).

Comments

    • Thor Gault says

      Those loaders…are the best guys…you could ever know…so chill…

    • broseph says

      How many Canadians does it take to load a bar quickly?????

      I know one of the bar staff, I’m sure they’re all great people but perhaps the organizing committee could have picked younger, more enthusiastic loaders.

      • Gregory Foster says

        You can only be a loader if you participated in the first ever Pan Ams

  3. TOR15 says

    Is Canaal4 meant to show the women or is there no live stream at the moment?

  4. Gregory Foster says

    Gonna be a lot of broken records. Mosquera’s entry total is already above the Pan Am record!

  6. Daniel Moon says

    Looks like no streaming for weightlifting. Thanks CBC/Toronto Pan Ams organizers!

  9. Yiro says

    Did anyone see how close Alex Lee was on his snatch attempts? Sad to see him bomb

    • Yiro says

      Also is he allowed to participate in the clean and jerk or is this event held like the olympics?

    • Leon says

      Well the first one he didn’t pull high enough. The second one was better, but it was a press out. Tough call. And the third one not even close. That suprised me. The first weight in the snatch shouldn’t be hard. So It can happen that you just lose it in front or behind, but he didn’t seem to manage to pull the lift high enough.
      Does anyone know what his best snatch is? Did he start a little high with 130?

      PS: Olympics is only about the total. There are no medals for snatch or clean and jerk seperately.

      • crossfitpete says

        He was hitting 130/135 pretty consistently as to what his IG account was showing. But not sure what was it like leading up to his 130 in training. He looked pretty nervous out there. I think first international meet since his university days.

      • Gregory Foster says

        He should have started lower. His snatch (and therefore total) was never going to be competitive anyway, so he should have ensured he got a snatch on the board and made it to the c&j, which is his much stronger lift.

        • dustin oranchuk says

          he has a very strong clean and jerk, 132/167 got bronze. if he had made 130 he only would have needed 170 in the clean and jerk to metal. he has been hitting 175+ in the clean and jerk pretty regularly from what I can tell.

          • Gregory Foster says

            Yeah, you’re right, my comment that his total wasn’t competitive was wrong. Still, I think he should have opened lower at 125, then gone up to 130 or 132. Even if he missed his second and third snatches, he could have jerked 175 for Bronze. Of course, this is all easy to say after the fact. Vasquez and Rubio would have been the ones to beat. Couldn’t have predicted they would both only total their entry weights.

        • Sean Michael Hutchinson says

          He snatched 140 several times in training and even hit an insane 150kg from the high blocks. I’m not sure if he is just cutting too much weight or what. Something weird going on with that snatch. Usually the clean and jerk is more effected by weight cut and not the snatch. Maybe nerves got the best of him.

    • eric says

      I asked him today. He said that the officials wouldn’t let him use his thumb tape the way had been setting it up. So, the bar keep slipping out of his hands.

  12. Rob says

    Travis Cooper – if Alex Lee got reds for press out Travis better watch it with that soft right elbow.

    • Gregor says

      Streams start a couple of minutes later, they don’t show athlete presentation. yesterday it was like 20 minutes delayed or something

  17. Chris Coker says

    Thanks for working to keep us updated on the feeds. F’ing volleyball…

  18. Gregory Foster says

    This is crazy, it’s like playing whack-a-mole with these streams

  19. Leon says

    Comment on Travis Cooper

    First of all very impressive to lift thre times after himself and keep making the lifts. The judges are tough, but at least on the second try you can see that the elbow unlocks and then locks again.

    I haven’t seen him lift before, but I had the impression that he was quite nervous. He adjusted his wrist bands and moved a lot up and down. So maybe the nerves have failed him a bit. Very pitty. Third place was within reach.

  20. wlift84 says

    Really good lifting by Solis, that’s the highest international result so far this year and a big PB it seems. Too bad they didn’t show the snatches.

    • Gregor says

      Once the TV stations decide to show weightlifting, one of these links will work.

      That’s how it has been for the past few days.
      and right this moment the 94kg stream starts working 🙂

      • jony kerbs says

        Thanks gergor, luckily i could see the c&j, i was nervious at the beginning haha!
        Thanks for your work, best weightlifting page!

  28. Leon says

    Comment on Pat Mendes:

    I almost hope that he was injured. What happened to him? He was soft in the bottom of the snatch and just seemed exhausted rather than eager to lift big weights. I almost want to suggest an off day to actually recover a bit.

    The clean was weak too (usually his strong suit). Given his aspirations that is just too less. The jerk of 200 looked better, but with 206 he didn’t create much force and rather tried to duck under it as quick as possible.

    Man! Every competition I hope that he delivers. I mean at least he totaled, but two out of six is still really bad.

    Does anyone have some background information about his training leading up to competition?

  30. lifter says

    Pat Mendes tests positive again, can this guy time his cycles better, also he has taken down his instagram and facebook. His 2016 dreams are most likely over unfortunately. Hes still pretty young though, if he has the motivation and doesnt get caught again or suspended a long time for this he can still try out for 2020, even though in competition he is pretty inconsistent.

      • Sanjay says

        He would definitely do better in powerlifting.
        Weightlifting is a dynamic sport – which is why so many great weightlifters come from a background of other dynamic sports such as gymnastics, sprinting, swimming,.etc (Lu Xiaojun, Yuri Vlasov, Yuri Vardanyan, f.e.). Even if a weightlifter did not train weightlifting in her youth, she can make a switch if she was already doing another speed based sport earlier and be competitive internationally.
        Mendes is a guy who is from a static sports background – he did lots of benching and squatting in high school, and as such is more suited for a static sport like powerlifting or bodybuilding.

    • dopemasta says

      To be honest I”m not sure if timing the cycle is the problem… I think politically Pat mendes has made some enemies, specially within USADA. Most failed drug tests are due to political reasons, not actual timing mistakes.

      • T Bone says

        I know that in the past in many different sports there has been evidence of positive doping tests being deliberate sabotage, especially at the olympics. However, I do not believe that to be the majority of the time. That is some serious paranoid thinking. In all likelihood sabotaging tests is in the minority and mistimed cycles are the majority. Also, these games were in Canada so isn’t USADA not the testing agency?

    • Pete says

      They should ban him forever, he is disgrace to weightlifting with these repeated offences.

  31. Sanjay says

    Pat Mendes made a 380 kg total in competition and 400 kg total in training. This is far less than Andrei Aramnau’s 436 kg world record total. To put these results in perspective, there are 85 kg and 94 kg lifters who have totaled over 400 kg in competition.
    So Mendes, even with drugs, can not come close to the best in this sport.
    Without drugs, Mendes might not be competitive internationally, and with drugs, he barely might come close, but still not close enough to the best.

    • mrtn86 says

      current world record in -85kg class is 394kg.
      nevertheless i think mendes has (or better had) potential..remember his 207kg snatch or his strong squat in early years. but i belive he was always lacking professional coaching and support, these broz-ideologies didnt work out (at least for him).
      his technique was inconsistent, maybe inefficient and you couldnt see improvements over the last years (training system?), he has done only a few competitions, they were totally wrong with his openers in his first big international competition (worlds), he was seriously injured (training system?) and neither they were able to time their cycles nor willing to stay in the US and go “the clean way”.

      imagine him starting earlier and going through e.g. the russian or chinese school of weightlifting – he could have reached top level.

      • Leon says

        It’s a shame. The first videos promised so much and he never delivered. He is obviously the type of athlete who tends to underperform in competitions. Steiner was the opposite for instance. But for Mendes it would have been important to compete much more often. I cannot help it, but everytime I see him lift in competition he seems almost scared. And this is normal, but he would need to have much more experience to get over this. Just training and then showing up to win the gold medal doesn’t work – at least not for his type of athlete. Most guys who start earlier have done hundreds of competitions before they reach the elite level.

        I agree with all your points, mrtn86. His technique never seemed to improve much and his jerk remained a big weakness.

        We have a sayng in German weightlifting: “Snatching is a matter of luck. Jerking is man’s business.”
        (Reißen ist Glückssache. Stoßen ist Männersache).

        On Instagram he posted this:

        “If I had one word to describe how I feel about my performance….Surprised. I’m disappointed sure but this was my best meet prep I’ve ever had. Training was absolutely perfect. My body and mind felt prepared. I can honestly say I’ve put more into this meet than any meet before knowing full well I’d have a shot to win. Weightlifting is just a tough sport and a 370kg total equals my worst day in training for the last 12 weeks. So it was just a bad day no excuses. I never dwell on the past and I try to look at the positives. 1. I totaled. 2. Last pan am games I was 8th. 3. I have my 2 international meets to be eligible for #Rio2016 games!! And the list can go on about the experience, sweet gear, meeting fans and supporters etc..I know one thing I’ll continue to take my shots, try my best and learn from my experiences. The #comeback continues and the next stop is Houston #worlds2015”

        • Sanjay says

          On his list of positives, he says he is happy that he totalled? Which is the least a lifter is expected to do?
          Apparently, he takes bombing out for granted.

          • Leon says

            It happened very regularly. Two out of six is still very poor. As I wrote elsewhere I was almost hoping that he was injured. That could have explained the very weak lifting. Especially the weak snatch bottom position and the clean.
            One a side note. He has apparently deleted his instagram and facebook accounts. Probably as a reaction to the doping news.

      • Sanjay says

        Bulgarian style training only works for people with good and consistent technique. IronMind videos show Bulgarian lifters making every lift with the exact same technique. Broz lifters, though, seem to have a dynamic starting position and catch and recover from their cleans and snatches in a different position every time.

        • Leon says

          Chad Wesley Smith has talked about this many times. He describes it as a pyramid where a beginner does a lot of different exercises to build general qualities and movement skills. The more athlete increases his qualification the smaller is the choice of exercises. Ilya Ilyin started at age six by doing all kinds of exercises. Now he is at the very top and pretty much does only snatch, clean and jerk and squats.

          In the case of Broz’ lifters the GPP phase has to be smaller given that the athletes started much later with lifting.

          • mrtn86 says

            i agree, but the amount of exercises also changes from phase to phase in a macrocycle and depends on the training system/philosophy. in the russian system they always do more varations thanin kazachstan (or at least “team astana”) and so on..

  32. Avellana Amarilla says

    Fernando is beast in country that has close to zero places to learn/train weightlifting, proud brazilian fellow here!

  33. DeezNutz says

    Lee might be another one who didn’t time his cycle right. How do you snatch 150 in training and bomb with 130?

  34. Alfonso Rodriguez says

    Enough about Pat Mendes. How about Nurik Vardanian? He must have been wasting his time since the London Olympics. There he posted only first attempts but managed 170 and 210. He should have won his class at the Pan Am’s but came in second with substantial less weights. He did not seem in good shape and should have beaten Kendrik Farris easily but did not seem well prepared. it is difficult to live up to expectations under the shadow of a father like his (Yury Vardanian who posted 177/222 in Moscow 1980 at 82.5 kg class. Still, I think he could more than what he posted in London but it is all in the mind, I guess, for he is certainly strong enough for 175 and 220 if he finds the desire and a good coach. A wasted opportunity for gold at the Pan Am Games.