John Ewing/Staff Photographer
John Ewing/Staff Photographer
John Ewing/Staff Photographer
ELIOT — Gwen Sisto squats before the bar, which holds about 150 pounds of weights. She carefully threads her hands around it, then lets out a deep breath.
Suddenly, explosively, she lifts the weights above her head, as her husband and coach, Ivan Rojas, screams, "Yes. Yes. Yes. That's it!"
The screams boom from the tiny building next to 121 Leach Road, a converted one-car garage that is now the home gym of Sisto, a 25-year-old Olympic hopeful.
"It's an amazing feeling," said Sisto, "to lift something that weighs more than you do."
Sisto, who moved to Maine three years ago, stands just 5 feet, 4 inches tall and weighs only 115 pounds, providing a stark contrast to the image that many have about weightlifters.
But, make no mistake about it, she is strong and regularly finishes in the top three in national events. She has qualified to compete in the U.S. Olympic Weightlifting Trials in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday, with the hopes of going to the Beijing Olympics.
That's quite a feat in itself considering the life that she leads.
Sisto is the mother of an active 4-year-old daughter, a grad student at MIT and a program manager at General Electric in Lynn, Mass.
She has little time for anything other than school, work and lifting -- and not necessarily in that order. She wakes at 5 a.m., gets the family ready for the day, drives to Massachusetts for work or school (she has classes twice a week while pursing her master's degree in aeronautics and astronautics) and then comes home to train.
"I sometimes wonder if she sleeps," said Hillary Brown, a 15-year-old neighbor who trains with Sisto and Rojas in their home gym.
Well, there have been times when she hasn't. Slept, that is. Especially when classes and competitions collide.
But weightlifting has been a part of Sisto's life since she was 12. Growing up in East Brunswick, N.J., she did not like playing what she calls "ball sports," such as softball or soccer.
"I was more into individual sports," she said.
She tried horseback riding, but that didn't last. Then one day she watched the late Florence Griffith-Joyner compete in the Olympics. "She was awesome, well-spoken, a beautiful person," said Sisto. "It's like she was the fastest woman in the world. She was the absolute best at something."
Soon after, Sisto's brother -- a high school football player and wrestler -- joined a weightlifting club. The coach was looking for females to join. "I had this epiphany," Sisto said. "I thought to myself, 'Maybe I can be the strongest woman.' So I joined."
And she was successful, winning competition after competition, even when she left for college, even though her parents often urged her to stop and concentrate on her studies. "My parents were, like, 'You're smart. You're fine,' " she said. "I've been too old to lift since I was 12."
Sisto went to Georgia Tech, where she graduated with a degree in aerospace engineering. She also received permission to train in the school's weight room, along with its scholarship athletes, who sometimes asked her for technical pointers.
While in college she interned at General Electric in Massachusetts and trained at the YMCA in Salem, Mass. That's where she met her husband, who was lifting and coaching other athletes. It was a meeting that changed her life.
"I used to weigh about 150 pounds before I met him and had my daughter," she said. "(Since then) I went down three weight classes. And even though I had been lifting for a number of years, he really improved my technique. Along with his philosophy, he has helped me lift more weight even though I weigh about 40 pounds less."
Rojas, 42, is a competitive lifter himself. And their lives revolve around the sport.
They have traveled the world to learn from the best: Germany, China, Spain and, for three weeks in January, Bulgaria, a nation with a rich history in the sport.
"Pretty much we try to learn as much as possible from every place and then come here and apply those lessons," said Rojas, who works as a banker in Portsmouth, N.H.
In Bulgaria, for example, it took just a look from the coach at the national training center to determine this: Sisto's backside was too high when she squatted to lift the weights.
"He said my butt was too high, and that I have to start a little lower so it will prevent the bar from swinging forward," said Sisto.
He also told her she was strong enough to be one of the best in her weight class.
"So what did I get out of that trip?" asked Sisto. "That I do have it, that I can be better."
That's why Rojas pushes her so hard during training sessions. Starting in 2004, he put Sisto on a training cycle that would carry her into the Olympic trials. Every workout, every day, has been documented. The workouts include lifting and more lifting. Strength training. There is some jumping, a little sprinting, drills that will help with the explosiveness that is part of the sport.
"We try to give her the same training conditions as if she were in the Olympics training center," said Rojas.
The workouts have obviously been successful. The tiny gym is crowded with trophies she has won. More than 40 medals dangle on the back wall, climbing from both sides to a peak. Now Sisto wants more.
"I want to stop selling myself short," she said. "I want to place myself more often in first."
But even first may not be enough to get Sisto to Beijing.
Based on the results of last year's world championships, the United States will bring only four women to Beijing. There are seven weight classes in weightlifting. Sisto is ranked fourth in hers (53 kilograms), though the competition at the trials transcends weight classes.
"Our trials are based on the top percentage of weight lifted compared to body weight," said Cecil Bleiker, the U.S. Olympic Committee manager of NGB media services. "The trials are not broken down by weight classes, everyone is competing against everyone. That's so we can get our best lifters to the Olympics."
That means there could be more than one lifter from a particular class. Bleiker said there are probably eight women who have a realistic shot of going to Beijing -- and that does not include Sisto.
"You can never count anyone out," he said. "But weightlifting is a sport where you have a pretty good idea where you stack up."
But, as Rojas said, "You have to go and do your best and things can happen in competition."
Injuries. Disqualifications. Bomb outs.
Bomb outs?
In weightlifting, each competitor has three chances to successfully complete both a snatch and a clean-and-jerk lift. If you can't, it's called "bombing out."
Even Bleiker said that while Sisto is a long shot, "If someone comes in and lifts more weight than anyone else, they'll make the team."
Sisto, who will lift on the first day of the trials, figures she would have to lift 178 kgs (390 pounds) combined to have a chance to qualify.
"She's capable of it," said Rojas. "When you talk about technique and strength, she could do that.
"She is a strong person. It's all up to her."
Staff Writer Mike Lowe can be contacted at 791-6422 or at:
mlowe@pressherald.com
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