Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold Joins ‘The Biggest Loser’ | OlympicTalk

U.S. Olympic weightlifter Holley Mangold on ‘The Biggest Loser’ | OlympicTalk

Super Heavyweight Holley Mangold

Well, this is unexpected!

Holley Mangold‘s road to the Rio Olympics will go through “The Biggest Loser.” 

Mangold, who placed 10th in the super heavyweight division at the London Games, said the NBC weight-loss show reached out to her. Now, she’s a contestant on the series’ 15th season beginning Oct. 8.

Ms Mangold is a super heavyweight Olympic weightlifter.  According to the USA Weightlifting website, female super heavies start at 165 lb and go up from there.  There is no upper limit to how much they can weigh.  Frankly, I think 165 lb is too low a starting point for a weight class called "super heavyweight".  Ms Mangold, however, weighed in at 346 lb at the 2012 Olympics and took 10th in her weight class.

53 Kg class Weightlifter, Cortney Batchelor

Olympic weightlifting doesn't just require strength.  It requires power, speed, coordination, flexibility, agility, balance and accuracy.  Of the ten components of fitness, the only two that Olympic weightlifters typically lack are endurance and stamina, and only because their sport does not require them.  As the photo above demonstrates, super heavy weights tend to carry around a lot of body fat as well.  Their smaller counterparts do not.

I've always wondered if all that extra body fat hurts the superheavies.  Last year, Aimee and I watched a documentary called "Strong!" about another American superheavy, Rachel Haworth.



In the documentary, Ms Haworth claimed that the weight added by body fat helped, because "mass moves mass".

Ms Mangold, however, thinks it hurt her.

“I feel like that was my limiting factor the last run for the Olympics is I was too big for the super heavyweight,” said Mangold... “I needed to be smaller so I could train harder.” 

Mangold said being on the show will help her get back to the Olympics in Rio, that she can be better at a smaller weight. 

“I think I finally decided now I don’t have to wait to retire before I get in shape,” she said. “I always had this thought that if I lost weight, I wouldn’t be as good of a weightlifter anymore. I plan on going to Rio. I was very nervous about it. I think, after ‘Biggest Loser’ reached out to me, I thought this is a good idea. I can do this and be the great weightlifter I want to be.”

I shouldn't have been surprised that "The Biggest Loser" reached out to Ms Mangold.  Back in 2012, in an interview with Wired Magazine, she stated that...

As soon as I retire I will be doing cross-fit and I’m sure I’ll go crazy with health stuff.

...and  "Biggest Loser" trainer, Bob Harper, is big into CrossFit.  On top of that, Ms Mangold stopped by the 2012 CrossFit Games for a weightlifting demo.  I'd be willing to bet it was Bob Harper's idea that she participate.

Whatever the case may be, I wish her the best of luck in both her health and Olympic weightlifting goals.

Here's a video interview Ms Mangold did with the show's producers.