Nothing disappointing about Haworth's day

The U.S. teen is thrilled with her bronze medal, looks ahead to 2004.

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 23, 2000

SYDNEY, Australia -- Cheryl Haworth wouldn't let go of her bronze medal as she sat on the podium and answered questions for reporters. She would hold up the medal for photographers. She let a reporter touch it but not without keeping a firm grasp on the ribbon.

"I've done everything I needed to do to get it," Haworth said. "It's a big relief. The bronze medal, I'm not disappointed at all. I wouldn't give it up for anything."

Haworth, 17, finished third in the over-165-pound weight class Friday in the first women's Olympic competition four years after she took up the sport to increase her strength for softball.

China's Meiyuan Ding won with 298 pounds in the snatch and 3633/4 in the clean and jerk. Poland's Agata Wrobel, who set world records that were immediately shattered by Ding, won the silver, lifting 291 pounds in the snatch and 357 in the clean and jerk. Haworth, who lifted personal bests of 2751/2 pounds in the snatch and 3191/2 pounds in the clean and jerk, has never come close to lifting that much.

But Haworth figures to grow with the sport. "A bronze medal is not all there is," she said. "I have to keep going."

Some believed Haworth might have done better had she and her coach, Michael Cohen, not been so conservative. She was the only lifter among the 10 not to miss a lift.

But Haworth and Cohen insisted Ding and Wrobel were too strong too challenge and it was better to plot to ward off Carmenza Delgado of Colombia, who finished fourth, and assure a bronze.

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