Mark Wiedmer
The large white banner hanging above an unmarked brown-tinted glass door in a small office park on Bonny Oaks Drive needs to be replaced this week. As of Saturday afternoon, it features the five Olympic rings, the words “Team USA/2024 Olympics/Paris, France” and in much larger, 18-inch-high, blue capital letters – OLIVIA REEVES.
What is missing, of course, are the three words that will forever be seen in every written mention of Reeves’ name from now on: Gold…medal…winner.
Within Chattanooga’s borders on Friday, it was the story to end all stories.
Reeves, a sociology major at UT-Chattanooga and 2021 Notre Dame High School graduate, won the gold medal in the 71 kg weightlifting class. It was the first gold medal won by an American woman in weightlifting (men or women) in 24 years and she also set an Olympic record.
Reeves told the Associated Press after shedding tears of joy on the winner’s podium: “I tried to treat it like any other competition, but it didn’t work. This is the Olympics. Feeling the gravity of this competition is different than the others. I somehow knew there would be tears, good and bad.”There’s a good chance Reeves is the first individual gold medalist from the scenic city. Former Brainerd High and Louisiana Tech graduate Venus Lacy won gold in women’s basketball at the 1996 Atlanta Games. Former Baylor School and University of Florida swimmer Geoff Gaberino won gold in the relay at the 1984 LA Games. McCallie and University of Michigan long-distance swimmer Sean Ryan, a native of Chattanooga, failed to medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
But individual gold? And a record-breaking performance in a sport in which the United States hasn’t won gold since 2000? Where’s the parade? When will city and county governments mandate that signs be posted at entrances to our city from the north, south, east and west that say, “Proud Home of Weightlifter and 2024 Olympic Gold Medalist Olivia Reeves”?
I first met Reeves in the spring of 2021 after receiving an email about her while working at another news organization in the city. She had just won a world weightlifting championship in Uzbekistan and the email said she had a good chance of competing in the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
A meeting was arranged with her trainer, Steve Fauer, whose gym, Tennessee Speed and Strength, is located behind the empty, brown-tinted glass door in the small office park on Bonny Oaks Drive.
At first glance, Reeves gave the impression of a charming and funny teenager, but more than that, she seemed grounded, focused and determined to reach the Olympic Games in Paris.
When asked if that was her dream, she quickly replied that Saturday morning in June: “That is the goal.”
And how much did she want to reach the goal? “Quite a lot,” she said.
But how can a teenager in Chattanooga focus on weightlifting? How can she push herself to the point of winning Olympic gold when all around her are similar teenagers addicted to their iPhones, Tik Tok, nights out with friends at cookouts, movies, or the mall?
How does a college student studying sociology make it to the biggest stage in sports and have a gold medal hanging around her neck?
For Reeves, it started a little less than 12 years ago when her parents, Amber and Jason, ran a CrossFit gym in North Georgia. Olivia didn’t particularly like the workout, but she loved the weights.
“I wanted to be good at a sport that I enjoyed,” she said three years ago. “I like weightlifting.”
But liking something so much that it wins you an Olympic gold medal is a whole different matter.
“I’ve trained other weightlifters, men, to get to a world championship,” Fauer said in 2021. “When you work with an athlete every day, you don’t always realize how good they are. But with Olivia, when she won the national championship for the first time, I started thinking we could do something special here.”
All of those national and world championships have so far ended up in a size 9 shoebox that Reeves keeps under her bed. She puts sticky notes on the box to remember where each one came from. It’s unlikely she needs a sticky note to remember Paris, but perhaps she should get a safe instead of a shoebox to protect the items.
When you read about these Olympics, about the more famous Olympians, like the U.S. men’s and women’s basketball teams, who reportedly paid $15 million to rent an 800-room hotel for themselves, their families and support staff for the entire duration of the games, you think it’s all gotten a little over the top and ostentatious. But USA Weightlifting probably budgeted around $400,000 for its Olympians. Reeves recalled her gold medal performance in Uzbekistan and how the hotel she stayed at served “horse meat.” But, she added, “there was plenty of pasta and rice and really good chocolate pudding.”
But anyone who spoke to Reeves three years ago already knew that she would not mind sleeping on a cardboard bed in the Olympic Village.
She stated that she eats a healthy diet and only drinks “water, orange juice and milk.”
When asked what she does on a day off from training, she replied: “Working in the garden or cleaning out my car.”
How responsible is Reeves? When she won the World Cup in Uzbekistan, she was “at my job at Chick-fil-A” the afternoon after she flew home.
And did we mention she was a 4.0 student at Notre Dame?
Of course, she didn’t do it all alone. Her family has supported her every step of the way. Fauer deserves a lot of praise for her training routines, which include significantly easier, shorter workouts than those favored by her competitors’ coaches.
After her victory, she told a news agency: “I dedicate this medal to everyone who helped me get here – my coach, my family, my gym. It takes a village to get here and I am truly blessed and grateful to those who helped me get here.”
She also told AP: “I hope this can inspire any young girl who wants to do this. I think being a representative of this sport means a lot and I’m proud to have this role.”
A victory parade and street signs celebrating what is almost certainly Chattanooga’s first individual Olympic gold medalist can’t come soon enough.
(Mark Wiedmer can be reached at [email protected])
