Athlete gives America much needed lift

By David Mullen

A local young woman has the weight of America on her shoulders.

Jourdan Delacruz was born in Dallas, but grew up in nearby Wylie, about 25 minutes northeast of downtown. At Wylie East High School, Delacruz was a cheerleader. At 23 years old, Delacruz will be cheered on by millions of Americans as she represents the U.S. at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo on Friday, July 23 through Sunday, Aug. 8 as a competitive weightlifter.

So one doesn’t seem like a dumbbell, here is a quick primer. Delacruz uses terms like wods (workout of the day), snatch (a barbell hoisted from ground to overhead in one movement) and clean and jerk (lifting a barbell from the ground to the shoulders while squatting and then standing) that are prevalent in her community (fellow weightlifters).

The oldest of two children, Delacruz was exposed to weight training at an early age but a late bloomer to the sport. “I was doing competitive cheerleading and high school cheerleading,” Delacruz said, “when I decided to start doing CrossFit. Very quickly, I found a passion for specific movements in the snatch and the clean and jerk. I was fortunate that the weightlifting coach was also the owner of the CrossFit [Wylie] facility and was able to teach me and get me started in my community.   

“I did have an abnormal amount of strength for a beginner,” Delacruz said, modestly. “I remember doing a wod that involved some running and a deadlift portion. I was doing 195 pounds as reps. I didn’t think much about it, but it was a lot [of weight] at the time.” To put the teenager’s workout in perspective, 195 pounds equates to a refrigerator, a spinet piano or the weight of the average American male.

Once she realized her ability in the sport as a sophomore, Delacruz was invited to be a resident at the U.S. Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs, which dramatically changed her school life. “I felt pretty supported by my cheerleading team,” Delacruz said, “and I wasn’t super involved in my high school. Most of my friends were already athletes. So, it wasn’t too bad of a switch. I do have to say that a lot of our best weightlifters were gymnasts or cheerleaders growing up. So the switch, in terms of mechanics and overall being an athlete, was pretty easy.” She finished her junior and senior year studies online.

Going from competitive cheerleading to Olympic weightlifter might seem like a stretch, but Delacruz said: “I think being a cheerleader and gymnast, you have a really good understanding of body awareness. You are very coachable to begin with. You have coordination and power and speed; a lot of those things you are building when you are younger and don’t really realize. When you switch over to weightlifting, it is a pretty natural transition.”   

Delacruz never had her junk food days as a child, growing up in a family with healthy eating habits. “I was very fortunate to grow up in a household that was into health and nutrition and taking care of our bodies.” Both her father and mother competed in bodybuilding. “Most of my strength comes from them.” Her younger brother is the only non-weightlifter in the family. “He could have been very good, but he has other passions,” Delacruz said. “We tried.” 

While it is impolite to ask a woman her weight, in the Olympics there is no social etiquette. Delacruz currently competes at 49KG (108 pounds) and has clean and jerked 255 pounds. She holds nine American records and three Pan American records. She is a two-time Pan American champion and won a gold medal at the Roma 2020 World Cup.

Delacruz said she has a balanced lifestyle despite her intense training. She trains twice a day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and once a day on Tuesday and Thursday. Sessions are two to three hours. She spends weekends resting, doing physical therapy and catching up on schoolwork. Her boyfriend of two years is not a weightlifter, but still competitive. He is a stunt man working in film. Training and competing for the Olympics proved challenging. She added, “because weightlifting is a bodyweight sport, you have to have periods where you are building muscle and making sure that you are consuming enough calories against what you are exerting, but then you have to cut down to your competitive body weight.” COVID-19 forced some competitive meets to take place via Zoom.

USA Weightlifting will send a full team to Tokyo consisting of four men and four women including Delacruz. Once dominated by Eastern Europeans, weightlifting has changed because of a stringent drug testing policy. Team USA Weightlifting has a chance to win multiple medals. 

“The sport needed to make sure that athletes going to the Olympics were clean athletes,” Delacruz said. As the Olympics near, she is drug tested at least once a week by multiple testing pools. Delacruz is in Atlanta putting in final work before the Summer Olympics. “I have competed in Tokyo a couple of times and I absolutely love the city there. I love Italy. I have also been to Turkey, Georgia, Uzbekistan … some places I probably wouldn’t go back to.” She has traveled through South America, Europe and Asia for competitions, and her final stop before the Olympics is Honolulu for a pre-Games training camp where her parents will join her. No fans are allowed at the Summer Olympic Games. 

She sees girls from China and India as the stiffest competition in her weight class. “I am not sure if the girl from China will be competing, because they have a very stacked team so they might not select her. So, we will see when we get closer who exactly I will be going up against.”

Delacruz is level-headed about her meteoric rise from East Wylie High cheerleader to U.S. Olympian. “It happened very quickly, my progression into weightlifting” she said. “About a year into it, I was already at the Olympic training center training with the best athletes in the U.S. They were all training for real. So even though I was around those people and getting the Olympic dream exposure, I still didn’t know if that was my overwhelming goal or just something that happened to me. It wasn’t until 2018 that I felt this drive to go, be the best, do the best I possibly can, pursue it 100 percent and commit my life to it.”  

 After the Olympics, Delacruz will continue taking college courses in dietetics and hopes to become a registered dietician, but not necessarily in sports. “Mostly, I would like to work in public health. That’s where my heart goes.” 

But first comes the Olympic Games. “It’s an honor and a dream come true,” Delacruz said. “This Olympics will look different, and I won’t be able to get the full Olympic experience, but that’s OK. Just to be called an Olympian and going to represent my country is more than enough for me.” Both her weightlifting community and her Metroplex community have a reason to cheer for the girl from Wylie.  

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