SPORTS
Naturally Stron
Mighty-mite Kathie Nichol
says nice Jewish girls do
belong in her sport.
RICHARD PEARL
Staff Writer
T
he cute little
brunette in the
bright pink tights
is about to do a
bar trick you
won't see in any saloon.
This bar is solid steel, a
foot longer than she is tall,
and it has two big, round
iron disks near each end.
The little gal weighs 105
pounds, the big bar and
disks about two-thirds as
much.
Legs berit, feet planted
firmly . just behind the bar,
she reaches down, grasps it
and in one smooth motion,
has the bar resting just be-
neath her chin, on her up-
turned hands. In the next in-
stant, she swoops into a deep
crouch, like a tribesman at a
campfire — but her arms
now are fully extended, the
bar and weights high over
her head.
Slowly she rises, her leg
muscles pushing her up un-
til she's standing under the
weight. In another couple of
seconds, she lowers the big
bar back down to the floor.
Then she begins the clean-
and-jerk movement again.-
It's tough work, but
somebody has to do it — es-
pecially if that somebody is
Kathie Nichol, 48-kilo
(105.6-pound) women's
weightlifting champion of
Michigan and proud owner
of a bronze medal from this
past summer's Olympic Fes-
tival.
"This summer was the
first women's weightlifting
at the Festival," said Nichol,
who turns 29 on Sunday. She
had tied for second, but her
competitor weighed a half-
pound less, pushing Nichol
into third place.
"It came down to the ice
cream cone I ate the day
before. It was very ag-
gravating," said Nichol, a
divorcee who watches her
weight as carefully as do
tens of thousands of other
diet-conscious women, albeit
60 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1989
with a difference: her weight
cost her the silver medal.
A kilo is 2.2 pounds. In the
competition, Nichol had
snatched 40 kilos, or 88
pounds, and cleaned-and-
jerked 52.5 kilos (115 1/2
pounds). That means the 5-
foot, 105-pound woman with
the almond-shaped eyes,
ready smile and 34-25-35
figure lifted a total of 2031/2
pounds at the Norman,
Okla., festival.
What petite Kathie Nichol
is into is neither women's
bodybuilding, which is for
building muscles, nor
women's powerlifting, a
rival sport to weightlifting
that emphasizes strength.
Women's weightlifting
utilizes both strength and
agility, as does the men's
version, she said. However,
women's weightlifting
wasn't recognized as a legit-
imate spoit with its own
records until 1987.
That makes Nichol, a
Southfield High School
physical education, health
and home economics teacher
who also is SHS girls'
volleyball coach, something
of a pioneer. And, like most
other trailblazers, she'd like
to see more young women —
Jewish girls included — par-
ticipate.
"I would encourage other
young women to go into it
because, for one thing, there
are not many others in it, so
the potential to achieve
success almost immediately
is very good," she said.
Nichol, originally from
Queens, N.Y., said she's not
the only Jewish woman in
the sport. Others include
Rachel Silverman, formerly
of San Francisco, and Carol
Santedea of New Mexico.
Nichol met both at the 1987
national weightlifting
championships in Houston.
Silverman competes at 52
kilos (114 pounds), Santedea
at 44 (97 pounds).
"There's not much in the
way of rewards," the Birm-
ingham resident cautioned.
"You can't get your face on a
Nichol doesn't want to see her sport die.
Wheaties box. But I enjoy it.
It's done good things for
me," including the friend-
ships she's made at various
competitions, staying fit and
releasing aggressions.
Furthermore, Nichol said,
"I don't want the sport to
die. It won't for the men, but
for the women it is dying
because of lack of publicity."
Nichol wants women's
weightlifting in both the
Olympics and the World
Maccabiah in Israel, even
though the earliest the
Olympics might have it, she
said, is 1996 — probably too
late for her to compete.
A self-described non-
athlete who is "just natural-
ly strong," Nichol's strength
impressed people as far back
as 1979 when, as a college
sophomore, she was working
as a Nautilus personal
trainer in a Manhattan
health club. "I was doing leg
extensions on a Nautilus
machine, lifting about half
the stack (150 pounds)," she
recalled. "I was doing what I
thought everybody could do,
until somebody came over
and said, 'Do you know how
much weight that is?' "
Nichol began competitive
lifting in 1980 a'sa
powerlifter. - She was atten-
ding Arizona State Univer-
sity at the time and working
as the football team's
athletic trainer when some
players invited her to lift
weights. Two months later,
she qualified for the U.S.
National Powerlifting
Championships, where she
placed 10th.
By 1985, she had switched
to weightlifting, twice winn-
ing her division in the Em-
pire State Games in her na-
tive New York. Moving to
Michigan in 1987, Nichol
won the national 48-kilo
title. But in the first half of