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Athlete Journal: Holley Mangold, Entry 9 – Wildfires in Colorado

Holley continues to train hard at the Olympic Training Center, despite the wildfires surrounding the area. Plus, this week she splurged for the first time ever and bought herself something!

holley mangold, olympics, london olympics, 2012 olympics, weightlifting

Written by Last updated on Oct 20, 2021

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Welcome to the Athlete Journal of Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold. Holley is part of Team USA headed to London this summer. Follow her journey here as she trains for the 2012 Olympics! Holley’s journal will be posted every Friday.

You can catch up by reading her previous journal entries!

Holley’s Athlete Journal 9:

This week has been action packed. I have been in Colorado for about the past two weeks. It kind of feels like longer though – not really in a bad way, I just get wrapped up in the Olympic Training Center (OTC) world and time goes out the window.

I have been training really hard as usual, but at the OTC we’ve been doing a lot more aerobics than I’m used to. Meaning, I’m a lot more tired than usual and somehow still have energy to goof around post practice. We’ve been having some fun goofing off in the gym after extra hard workouts. Being with other Olympians and crazy dedicated athletes daily is so exhilarating. I’m really getting used to my routine and having awesome meals in the cafeteria.

I’m not sure how the adjustment is going to go when I come back to Columbus (reality). This past week I bought my first Mac. I was spoiled using my sister’s computer while she was out of town, so I had to get one for myself. It’s been the best thing to have on my down time, since I don’t have my Mario Cart partners with me out here in Colorado. Truly it’s been my only splurge ever and it’s been very worth it! While on the computer, I’ve been able to Tweet and Facebook a lot more. It is easy for me to keep up with Twitter since its just short blurbs that I can get to between practices. Follow me @HolleyMangold.

I’ve been very lucky to meet some of the great people of Colorado Springs because of a very unfortunate event. This past week there has been a terrible wildfire that is affecting the whole area. While they’re trying to handle the fire, the OTC has been a relief center for the displaced people. The smoke cloud is intense and I feel terrible for not only all the people with damaged property and the injured people, but also for the endurance athletes who came out here to train and have to endure the smoke. It’s all around terrible and I hope the fighters can get it under control soon. I’m not sure why, but natural disasters seem to follow me and hit at the most important training times. I’ve endured a volcano erupting, a terrible earthquake, and now a wildfire. I need to break that trend somehow!

This upcoming week is just getting more and more exciting as I count down the days to London. I can’t wait and yet I wish for more time to prepare. Here’s one of my workouts from the past week:

  • Drop snatch + squat up to 105kg
  • Hang snatch from knee + squat up to 75kg
  • Snatch from low blocks up to 107kg – then a double with 100kg
  • Pull Snatch 3 stops up to 125kg
  • Squat in split forward up to 145kg

Follow me on Twitter! Looking forward to a great training week to come!

holley mangold, olympics, london olympics, 2012 olympics, weightlifting

About Holley Mangold

Ohio native Holley Mangold is no stranger to elite competition. The daughter of an accomplished swimmer, Holley made her own name for herself when she became the first girl ever to start in an Ohio High School State Championship football game (as an offensive lineman no less). And if you know anything about high school football in Ohio, you know the significance of that achievement.

Though Holley loved her twelve years on the football field, her athletic career came to a crossroads upon high school graduation. Faced with bleak prospects of being competitive on a college football team as a woman, Holley turned to throwing shot and discus at Ursuline College in Cleveland. Holley had prior experience in powerlifting—with the legendary Larry Pacifico—during high school, but started to look for a strength sport that could specifically help in her throwing career. She quickly found weightlifting—with Coach Dan Bell—and she continued to lift in college.

Over the next two years, Holley continued to improve in the quick lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk. After strong performances in both the 2008 and 2009 Junior World Championships, Holley won gold in the 2009 American Open and earned one of only 7 spots on the 2010 Pan American Team.

Holley’s steady improvement eventually earned her an invitation to the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to train with National Team Coach Zygmunt Smalcerz and an MTV reality show:True Life: I’m the Big Girl.After failing to improve at the OTC, however, and suffering a knee injury in the process, Holley left Colorado to have surgery and to train with Coach Mark Cannella in Columbus, Ohio.

Cannella, widely considered to be one of the best technicians in the country, went to work on Holley, and eleven weeks later, she set lifetime personal records at the 2011 Arnold Weightlifting Championships and has set a personal record in every national and international competition she has competed in since.

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