Closing of local gym doesn't stop lifters from training
Taking it outside
By Joey Jones
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Olympic-style weightlifting, a Summer Olympics mainstay since 1920, can now be found in only one Augusta location: Steve Colohan's back yard.

That is where he and fellow lifter Bill Thaggard have been relegated to train after the sport's last bastion in the Garden City, Python Gym, closed on Saturday.

Python had been the city's only gym which would allow its members to perform the clean and jerk and snatch techniques of Olympic-style weightlifting.

Because of "insurance reasons," powerlifting, which consists of the squat, the bench press and the dead lift, is all that is allowed in local fitness clubs.

"When I go over to talk to gyms and tell them, 'I'm an Olympic lifter,' they tell me, 'You can't lift here,' " Colohan said. "Even when I tell them that I have my own equipment, they say it doesn't matter."

Without a facility, Colohan and Thaggard continue their weekly regimen that helped them win titles at the American Masters Weightlifting Championships in Savannah, Ga., earlier this month.

The 50-year-old Colohan captured the 50- to 54-year-old, 94-kilogram weight class with a snatch lift of 85 kilograms (187 pounds) and a clean and jerk of 108 kilograms (238 pounds).

Thaggard, who is still lifting at the age of 74, took the 70- to 74-year-old, 69-kilogram weight class with a snatch of 29 kilograms (64 pounds) and a clean and jerk of 40 kilograms (88 pounds).

Thaggard first learned the clean and jerk technique at his Savannah home in 1948. He competed in small state tournaments for a short time before putting weightlifting aside to pursue a teaching career.

After retiring, health problems led Thaggard back to the sport. He came back to find that a new division of USA Weightlifting had been established: the Masters, a competition for ages 35 and older.

"It's something that I really love. What other way can a 74-year-old man compete in sports?" said Thaggard, who has since won national titles and has competed and won in all but one Georgia Games.

In 1994, Thaggard met Colohan. A 1985 collegiate national champion at then-Augusta College, Colohan narrowly missed qualifying for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. With his performances so far this year, he has qualified for the 2009 World Masters Weightlifting Championships in Sydney, Australia. A world title would be the next in a long line of accomplishments for Colohan.

"I've won over 100 trophies, so I had to put them in the attic," he said. "I got tired of having them out, so I just put them away."

The two men had been training together four-five days a week at Python Gym for the past 14 years. But the gym's owner, Tee Meyers, signed on to train soldiers in Kuwait, leaving Thaggard and Colohan without a weightlifting home.

"There's not a single gym in Augusta that will allow Olympic weightlifting," Thaggard said. "So we'll have to revert to the back yard."

Thaggard and Colohan do not intend to end their competitive lifting careers any time soon. In fact, they welcome the prospect of training anyone who wishes to learn the sport, free of charge.

"We've always found a home. It may be a couple of years that we have to train in the yard, but we'll always find a home," said Colohan, who purchased equipment from Meyers prior to Python's closing. "If worst comes to worst, I'm planning on building a two-car garage with a weightlifting platform. We'll just have a training facility right here."

From the Thursday, November 20, 2008 edition of the Augusta Chronicle