Marshall Islands weightlifter Mattie Sasser, now competing for Team USA, has done it again. Earlier this week at the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru she set three new American weightlifting records for her 64kg (141 pounds) weight category on her way to winning a silver medal.
She came in second in a field of 11 weightlifters from Canada to the nations of the Caribbean, Central and South America.
Her “clean and jerk” lift of 130kg (286 pounds) tied her with the gold medalist from Columbia, and she was only three KG lower on the “snatch,” ending with a 232kg (511 pounds) total to the 235kg (518 pounds) total of the gold medal winner.
The Pan Am Games competition is a step on her path to qualifying to compete at next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan.
“This is a huge step as she continues her quest to qualify to compete for Team USA at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo next summer,” said Mattie’s mother and Marshall Islands National Olympic Committee official Amy Sasser in a social media post earlier this week.
Read more about this in the August 2, 2019 edition of the Marshall Islands Journal.