U.S. weightlifters to fight for Olympic berths

LOS ANGELES, March 14 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. weightlifting men's team is in the midst of final preparations for the final opportunity to qualify the country for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, the U.S. Olympics Committee (USOC) announced on Friday.

This final chance for the team will come at the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships in Callao, Peru, the USOC said in a statement.

The team must place in the top two, among teams who have not already qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games, in order to secure two positions for the upcoming Beijing Games.

The top eight U.S. men will represent the USA at this critical event. The team departs for Peru on Monday, March 17 and will begin competition on Wednesday, March 19. By the end of the day on Easter Sunday, March 23 the team is fully expected to have secured two Olympic slots.

"We're taking our top eight men to Peru to qualify our two spots for the Olympic Games," said Dennis Snethen, Interim Executive Director for USA Weightlifting. "The Pan American Championships in Callao, Peru is going to be one of the most important events ever for USA Weightlifting, as we've never had anOlympic Team without a U.S. man on the platform, so the pressure is on and every lift will be like air to breathe."

Following the conclusion of the 2007 World Weightlifting Championships in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in September, the U.S. men thought they had done enough to secure three Olympic slots as theysat in a 27th place combined finish from the results of the 2006 and 2007 World Championships. This would have made the U.S. the final country to qualify slots for the Olympic Games.

Christmas of 2007 was not kind to the USA men as the grinch (in the form of the International Weightlifting Federation website) visited, taking away the three Olympic slots that the team had thought they had secured. The International Weightlifting Federation re-calculated the team standings following doping positives by athletes from other teams and, despite the fact that no one on the U.S. team tested positive, the U.S. men dropped one position in the overall team rankings, thus losing the three Olympic slots they thought they had earned.

The shift in order, due to doping positives in teams that finished above Team USA, caused a re-shuffling of points and the final mathematical breakdown moved Chinese Taipei above the United States leaving the U.S. men's team as the first team not qualified for the Olympic Games.

If the U.S. men's team secures the two Olympic slots next week, they will move onto the 2008 U.S. OIympic Team Trials for Weightlifting, May 16-17 in Atlanta, Ga., where they will be vying with 22 other men for two positions and a chance to perform on the Olympic platform in Beijing. For the eight men that will represent the United States at the 2008 Pan American Weightlifting Championships, this event will count as their National Championships in regards to ranking going into the Olympic Trials and will be their secondary Olympic qualifying event.

The United States women have qualified for the maximum of four competition slots for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China.