At her first USA Weightlifting competition, Jennifer Borigo missed her first snatch attempt of 53 kilograms.
“There weren’t a lot of people there, but there was a little audience,” the State College athlete says about the Pennsylvania State Weightlifting Championships and York Open that she competed in over the weekend. “I remember I got ready for my lift and when I put my chest up there were just a lot of eyes on me. I think it just distracted me a little bit.”
Borigo wasn’t too distracted during the rest of the competition, though. She went on to set two state records for the 53 kilogram weight class – one right after the other – for her snatch lifts at the competition of 53 kilograms (about 123 pounds) and 59 kilograms (about 130 pounds). With a total of 124 kilograms between her snatch and clean and jerk lifts, Borigo qualified for the American Open Weightlifting Championships in Dallas, Texas before the competition was even over.
Her final total of 127 kilograms would have gotten her into the 2013 National Weightlifting Championships, but Borigo just missed the cut-off date to qualify.
“I feel good,” she says. “I’m really happy. I can’t wait to do it again … competing is so much fun.”
Borigo, who was also named “Best Lifter” for the meet in the Women’s Open Division and was the only lifter with a national qualifying total, got into competitive weightlifting after a few years of doing CrossFit in State College at CrossFit Nittany.
Bryan St. Andrews, owner of the gym and Borigo’s coach, says Borigo wasn’t an experienced weightlifter when she first started doing CrossFit in 2010. However, Borigo’s fierce, competitive nature made her a natural at the sport.
“When she gets something in her mind and wants to do it, she just goes after it,” St. Andrews says. “She’s really been putting in the work over the past two years to where the last five weeks was just polishing it up and getting ready for [the competition].”
In addition to competitive weightlifting, Borigo also teaches CrossFit and weightlifting classes at CrossFit Nittany. And with her recent success, the 27-year-old has her sights set on the future.
“I like to dream big,” she says about competing at the Olympics someday. “That would be a big goal for me to reach. I’m not anywhere close to that now, but I hope to just keep getting better and lift more weight.”
“We have probably two or three other people at the gym who Jen has really set the tone for,” St. Andrews says about Borigo. “She’s very shy and got out of her comfort zone and went and did this and kind of blew it up.”
