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Jocelyn Pedersen, OU professor and state gold medalist in weight lifting, poses for a picture with her first place medal and trophy Nov. 16. Pedersen started lifting weights to improve her swimming, but then transformed into a state competitor in weightlifting. She now hopes to qualify for the World Masters Games.
SURPRISE SUCCESS OU professor wins weightlifting state championship after training for only eight weeks
J
ocelyn Pedersen, an OU business communications professor, an author and a recreational swimmer, became a weightlifting state champion with a chance of competing internationally after training for only eight weeks. “I got into weightlifting by accident,” the 59-year-old said. Pe d e r s e n j o i n e d t h e U. S. Masters Sw imming team in September after deciding earlier in the year to pick up swimming as a hobby. On one of her pool days, she asked a friend to time her, “just for giggles.” After a Google search, Pedersen discovered she was only 4.5 seconds shy of a national qualifying time. She recounted her discovery to her neighbor Bob White, an 85-year-old weightlifting coach, international competitor and former weightlifting national champion. A few days later, White handed Pedersen a singlet, welcomed her to his weightlifting team and said, “I’m going to buy you those four-and-a-half seconds and more, because if you’re stronger, you’ll swim faster.” FROM SWIMMER TO WINNER Pedersen started lifting weights to help her swimming, but she quickly transformed into a state competitor in weightlifting. Pedersen said she began lifting with Team Metro, White’s local certified USA club, in late August. She said White coached her on basic skills for a couple weeks before tackling the two lifts featured in competition: the “clean and jerk” and the “snatch.” The clean and jerk is a twostep lift that involves hoisting the bar from the ground to the shoulders and then over the head. Pedersen learned this lift first and eventually moved on to the snatch, which features lifting the bar off the ground and over the head in one motion — a lift White called the hardest in sports. “She’s putting weight over her head that’s more than her body weight,” White said. Pedersen said she’d been practicing the clean and jerk
DREW HUTCHINSON • @DRETHEGIRL for six weeks and the snatch for three weeks when White decided she was ready to compete. On Oct. 27, White took Pedersen and three others to the Sooner State Open, a qualifying meet hosted by Athlete Inc. in Oklahoma City. Pedersen said she was on edge before the competition — she could barely put on her wrist wraps to compete — but White’s faith in her did not waver. “(White) told me, ‘ You’ve done this a hundred times, now
“It was really cool to see her compete. She, of course, was nervous ... but she did really well. I was really impressed with her.” TOM WARD, STAFF MEMBER AT FIELD HOUSE
go out there and do it,’” Pedersen said. Pedersen, nervous and inexperienced as she was, won the gold in her weight and age categories, scoring 70 points. She also took home the outstanding female lifter award, an honor Pedersen said surprised h e r m o re t ha n w i n n i ng t h e championship. Tom Ward, a staff member at nonprofit wellness program The Field House, organized and directed the Sooner State Open. He witnessed Pedersen’s win and said her talent was apparent at the meet. “It was really cool to see her compete,” Ward said. “She, of course, was nervous ... but she did really well. I was really impressed with her.” Pedersen said she was a distance runner in high school and a walk-on for OU before damaging her knee. White said he thought this athletic background, as well as her experience taking the “stage” as a professor, served her well as a weightlifter. He also spoke to her dedication, saying Pedersen
frequently studies her lifts in the gym’s “video room.” “She’s very bright as far as learning, having been an athlete in high school and college, so she knows what it takes,” White said. When asked if he thought Pedersen could qualify for an i nt e r nat i o na l c o m p e t i t i o n , White responded, “Is the Pope Catholic?” TAKING WEIGHTS WORLDWIDE White said he has competed in international weightlifting competitions several times, but next time, he intends to take Pedersen with him. “He believes, and looking at these numbers I now believe, that I can make it,” Pedersen said. The World Masters Games is an international multi-sport competition for athletes over the age of 30. White said Pedersen would qualify for the 2021 world competition weightlifting division if she were to score 72 points at a qualifying meet. “She’s on the verge of hitting it right now, so probably her next meet or so she’ll hit it,” White said. “There’s no real pressure for her. She’s very, very strong.” Pedersen said points in weightlifting are calculated by adding the weight competitors lift for the clean and jerk to the weight they lift for the snatch, so Pedersen must lift two more kilograms. White said the next qualifying competition is in February. “I am within two kilos of international w inning score,” Pedersen said. “I couldn’t believe it. I had no idea.” P e d e r s e n s a i d s h e ’s c u rrently in the 58-kilogram body weight category. But she said she’s burning so many calories in training that moving down a weight class is possible. If this happens, she said, she’ll only have to score 58 points to qualify for the world competition, a score she’s already surpassed. White, who recently won second place at a national weightlifting competition, once placed fourth at the World Masters Games and said he plans to compete again in 2021. According to
the World Masters Games website, 50,000 people are expected to participate in the 2021 competition, which will take place in Japan. “It’s a really bigger event than the Summer Olympics in terms of competition,” White said. Pedersen said she still hits the pool almost every morning and has cut time on her mile swim since starting weight training. In fact, she said, her next objective is finding a swim coach to help her qualify for the World Masters Games in swimming, too. “I haven’t verified that that would be a first for a masters woman, but (White) says it is,” Pedersen said. “I come from a long line of stubborn Vikings, a n d w h e n I s e t my m i n d t o something, it usually happens.” Pedersen must balance her training with work — she teaches three sections of business communications in the Price College of Business, according to OU’s ClassNav website. She
said she swims in the mornings before work and lifts in the afternoons when she returns home. “It’s just a great way to end the day,” Pedersen said of her weightlifting. Accomplishments aside, Pedersen said weightlifting has given her more confidence and brought her new friends. White agreed and said he calls Pedersen a “bell sheep.” “And, of course, that’s from the Bible where they put a bell on the sheep and all the sheep follow the sheep with the bell,” White said. “So a lot of people congregate around her.” More than anything, weightlifting has been a source of joy, Pedersen said. “I’m just doing it for fun,” Pedersen said. “I don’t know for sure that I’ll make it to the games in Japan, but I’m sure going to have fun trying.” Drew Hutchinson
drew.hutchinson@ou.edu
PHOTO PROVIDED BY JOCELYN PEDERSEN
Pedersen poses for a photo with her trophy after she won the state championship for weightlifting at the Sooner State Open Oct. 27.