Chattanooga will have a hometown Olympian competing this summer in France.
Olivia Reeves will represent the United States in weightlifting at the Paris Games. USA Weightlifting announced its five representatives for the 2024 Summer Olympics on Friday night in Colorado Springs, the home of the U.S. Olympic Training Center, and the 21-year-old Hixson native and University of Tennessee at Chattanooga senior was among them.
Although her presence on the team is not a surprise — USA Weightlifting's news release described Reeves as one of the "best young weightlifters on the planet" — the record-setting Reeves is still getting used to her new label.
"It's weird because when I think of an Olympian or know people who are Olympians, I'm like 'Wow, they seem really cool.' And I'm like, 'Wait a minute, I'm also an Olympian now," Reeves said in a UTC news release posted to the school's website on Saturday. "I'm recognizing that it is becoming a part of my identity.
"It's exciting and I'm coming to the realization that it's actually happening. It's real."
The opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics is set for July 26, although competition in some sports will be held over the previous two days. Weightlifting will take place at the South Paris Arena over the final five days, Aug. 7-11.
Reeves, a Notre Dame High School graduate who competes at 71 kilograms (156 pounds), is studying sociology at UTC and is set to graduate in December. She will become the first actively enrolled student in the school's 138-year history to participate in an Olympic Games, according to UTC's release.
She admitted Friday's announcement felt "monumental," and it adds to a career that already has plenty of impressive moments.
At the final Olympic qualifying event last month in Phuket, Thailand, Reeves won three gold medals while setting a trio of American records: 118 kilograms (260 pounds) in the snatch, 150 kilograms (331 pounds) in the clean and jerk, and 268 kilograms (591 pounds) total.
Reeves will arrive on July 18 in Paris, where she will spend nearly a month training and competing. Her weight class will compete on the third day of weightlifting events, Friday, Aug. 9, at 7:30 p.m. in Paris (1:30 Eastern).
When not working out or competing, she plans to explore the Olympic Village and watch as many other sporting events as she can.
"My mindset is to keep doing what I'm doing, keep training," Reeves said. "What I'm doing is working; don't change anything."
Reeves, who began lifting when she was 12 years old, has medaled in competitions around the world, including last December in Qatar, where she broke seven world records. According to USA Weightlifting's release, she has nine world records in all and 15 American records.
She was described as being the "second-strongest woman in the world in her weight class" in a recent article on BarBend.com, a weightlifting informational website, and was praised as "one of this generation's greatest weightlifters" in a recent post on the USA Weightlifting website.
"The goal is always just the next competition," Reeves said in UTC's release. "Do better at the next one, do better than I did at the last one kind of deal."
The first-time Olympian is among the favorites to medal in Paris, but she wants to focus on competing.
"It's such a big thing and I think it's really easy to get caught up in people's predictions," Reeves said. "Trying not to get caught up in that is my goal."
She is one of three women who will represent the U.S. in weightlifting, with the others Mary Theisen-Lappen (+81 kilograms) — the 33-year-old from Wisconsin is a first-time Olympian — and 26-year-old Jourdan Delacruz (49 kilograms), who is back after competing at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Games in 2021.
There are two men on the team: Wes Kitts (102 kilograms), who also competed at the Tokyo Games, and Hampton Morris (61 kilograms), who at 20 is the youngest member of this year's team and — like Reeves — ranked No. 2 in the world in his weight class. Delacruz and Morris have ties to the Atlanta area, while Kitts is a 34-year-old Knoxville native who played college football as a running back at Austin Peay.
Four of the five team members are ranked in the top five in their class.
"I couldn't be more excited for these five athletes and what they represent about the development of elite weightlifting in the U.S.," Matt Sicchio, the president and CEO of USA Weightlifting, said in the organization's announcement release. "These five have fought tooth and nail through a grueling qualification process to make this team and they've been fantastic representatives of themselves, their families, and our country throughout the process."
While Reeves will be the first actively enrolled UTC student to compete, several athletes with ties to the school have gone to the Olympics.
That list includes rower Dan Beery, a 2000 graduate and former member of UTC's crew team (rowing is a club sport at the school), who won Olympic gold as a member of the U.S. men's eights team in the 2004 Athens Games in Greece. Beery's coach at UTC, Robert Espeseth, was a bronze medalist in the men's pair event in the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
In wrestling, Charlie Heard, a three-time All-American for the Mocs and national runner-up at 118 pounds at the 1983 NCAA Division I tournament, was an alternate for the Olympics both in 1984 and 1988 (Seoul, South Korea).
Reeves trains in Chattanooga at Tennessee Speed and Strength and is coached by the gym's owner, Steve Fauer. He will accompany her to Paris, according to UTC's release.
"She has it all in perspective; as a result, she's been able to ride this whole thing out," he said of the long process toward becoming a world-class lifter and Olympian. "For a coach, she has been the athlete we all want."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com.