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Lifting Our Youth to Greater
Heights!
about
us
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Team
New
Jersey was established in 2000 by Bob
Giordano, a competitive Olympic Weightlifter and a member of the 1980
United States Olympic Weightlifting Team. The program began when a local
youth asked Giordano to teach him the technique involved in Olympic style
weightlifting. After several
months of training, that youth entered his first Olympic Weightlifting
competition. He astounded
everyone with his medal winning performance. Since that time, many other young
people have joined him in training with the group that has come to be
known as Team New Jersey.
The nucleus of the competitive team
consists of fifteen to twenty young men and women, who train on a regular
basis and compete throughout the year. In a short time, Team
New
Jersey has garnered many medals and honors,
both individual and team, recently capturing the team trophy for best team
at the Metropolitan Open Championship in Queens, New
York. Additionally, our team members
have established many state records in the various weight categories. One Team New
Jersey member recently won the prestigious
Governor’s Cup, symbolizing the best lifter at the Garden State
Games. And several of our
lifters have placed in the top ten in their respective weight classes
at the Junior National Championships and Senior National
Championships. Two athletes have already represented the United
States at the Pan American Junior Championships in Santiago,
Chile.
From the beginning, a major obstacle
to the growth and development of Team New Jersey has been the lack of adequate
training facilities. In
search of adequate facilities, Giordano contacted a friend in the
weightlifting community, Nick Curry, who was an assistant coach at the
weight training facility at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Curry is a long time competitive
Olympic weightlifter, coming from a family of competitive
weightlifters. He was able to
obtain approval for the members of Team New Jersey to train at the facility at
Fairleigh Dickinson. However,
the growth of Team New Jersey has led Giordano and Curry to seek
out a new facility that will provide all the space necessary to help Team
New Jersey reach its goal to become a
nationally ranked Olympic Weightlifting team.
This lofty goal was inspired in large
part from a team trip during the summer of 2002. A group of eight young men,
accompanied by Giordano, drove a van to Savannah, Georgia, to train for a week at the site of
Team Savannah, a national powerhouse in the sport. Team
Savannah was founded by Michael Cohen, also a
member of the 1980 United States Olympic Weightlifting Team. Cohen had graciously invited
Giordano to bring a group of lifters to train at the facility there. The dream was
born!
The young men trained at a first
class facility, recognized as one of the premier training facilities in
the world. The space for Team
Savannah was generously donated by the Chatham County governing
body. A new facility, funded
by a portion of local sales tax revenue for Olympic legacy, was built in
1995. Since that time,
lifters from over one hundred countries have visited the facility and
trained there. Team
Savannah has grown to over 200 members. Nationally, the team became the #1
ranked Junior team and one of the top three Senior teams. Three members of Team Savannah
represented the United States of
America at the 2000 Olympic Games in
Sydney, Australia.
With this model, Team New
Jersey has continued to dream of the day
when it may have a facility of its own, to develop not only Olympic
athletes, but others from the community who want to benefit from the
Olympic ideal. It is the hope
that through a cooperative effort between the public and private sectors,
this dream will become a reality.
Team New
Jersey is a 501(C) 3 corporation,
governed by a Board of Directors.
As such, we hope to obtain vital funding from the private
sector. Major corporations
have been generous sponsors of programs such as Team Savannah. With the help of private
corporations, and the assistance and support from the public sector, Team
New Jersey can attain this
dream!
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