U.S. weightlifting rising star C.J. Cummings Jr. bummed out after rough Olympics debut
TOKYO — TOKYO — Clarence “C.J.” Cummings Jr. was struggling through the most humbling night of his young career when he stepped onto the platform for his second clean-and-jerk lift on Wednesday at Tokyo International Forum. He stared down at the barbell and clapped chalk out of his hands. Even if he made this lift of 190 kilograms, it would move him into a tie for sixth place in the men’s 73-kilogram division of his first Olympics.
“Believe in yourself! Finish!” his longtime coach, Ray Jones, screamed at the 21-year-old, but Cummings just couldn’t. He grunted and convulsed as he lifted the bar to his shoulders, only to drop it as he tried to hoist the weight over his head.
That left him desperate. A few minutes later, in attempt to tie for the bronze medal, Cummings went for it all — attempting a world record 198 kilograms.
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“I had to do whatever I had to do,” Cummings said, but he couldn’t complete the lift. The bar snapped out of his hands and rumbled onto the floor, along with it any chance to become the first American man since 1984 to win a medal in weightlifting.
“I’m bummed out. It was a horrible performance,” Cummings said.
The United States is hoping for its best Olympic showing in weightlifting in six decades here in Tokyo, and while it still has much of its roster waiting to compete, two of its young stars — first 23-year-old Jourdan Delacruz in the 49-kg women’s division and now Cummings — have turned in disappointing performances over the first five days of the Games.
For Cummings, a longtime child prodigy in the sport who some have called the “LeBron James of weightlifting,” his performance — he finished with 325 points, good for ninth place — came in the background of dominance from China’s Shi Zhiyong, who broke his own world record by lifting a combined 364 kg to earn a gold medal at a second consecutive Olympics.
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“I had some success at a young age. But this is a whole different league. This is the big boy league,” Cummings said.
After it was done, it was hard for Cummings to make sense of his performance. He couldn’t complete his first snatch of 145 kg on the first lift of the night. Two minutes later, he made his lift at 145 kg — but couldn’t convert at 150. He dropped the barbell behind his shoulders.
It was a rude awakening for someone who, by age 11, had performed a clean and jerk of 90 kilograms (roughly 198 pounds) — twice his body weight — and who, by age 20, had set 23 national records and won four junior world titles.
Between sets Wednesday night, he thought of his family back home in South Carolina.
“I was disappointed in my performance. I know everyone is going to say they’re proud of me,” he said. “But I’m not proud of my performance.”
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He was performing just before 7 a.m. local time in his hometown of Beaufort, S.C., and at his gym, the Foundry, there were plans to show the meet on a projection screen so the early lifters there could watch while they worked out. A few hours before he competed, his sister, Crystal Cummings, was making plans to wake up early and root on her brother.
“At the end of the day, regardless of the outcome, you still made history,” Crystal said she told him before the Olympics.
A few hours before he lifted, she was reflecting on his path — his speed and power as a little kid had made him a star on youth football fields in Beaufort — and Crystal, who competed in national weightlifting herself, encouraged her little brother to use lifting as a way to develop in football. She drove him and his brother, Omar, to a middle school gym one day, where they met Jones. He gave C.J. Cummings a PVC pipe to take home and practice squats and stretches.
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Within a year, he was making noise on the youth lifting circuit, and soon he was setting record after record. By 15, he chased his first Olympics but failed to qualify. Then he made Team USA ahead of Tokyo — and, like all athletes, had to navigate the pandemic while getting ready for the best in the world.
“He has matured in a lot of ways. If the Olympics would have taken place last year, I don’t think he would have mentally been prepared or would have mentally been there,” Crystal said. “It gave him a year to mature more. I feel like he’s more disciplined this year. He’s more focused.”
Cummings had the look of a focused lifter when he arrived on the platform Wednesday night — but he admitted that he began to rush on his first snatch as he was trying to become the first U.S. men’s weightlifter since heavyweight Guy Carlton and super heavyweight Mario Martinez in 1984 to win a medal.
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For the first time since 1996, the United States is competing with a full team of weightlifters at the Olympics — four women and four men — and as the team was announced earlier this summer, the organization’s CEO, Phil Andrews, said he believed those eight lifters could deliver “potentially our best Olympic Games in 61 years.” Five of the eight are 25 or younger, with Cummings the youngest at 21.
“We have a lot of lot of young and up-and-coming talent,” Cummings said. “This is just the beginning.”
The United States suffered disappointment when Delacruz, considered a medal contender, didn’t place in the women’s 49 kg earlier in the Games — but the country still has a roster full of medal contenders waiting to compete, including Sarah Robles, who won a bronze in Rio de Janeiro to give Team USA its first medal in the sport since 2000.
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Cummings will have to wait, too. He watched as other lifters passed him quickly Wednesday, including Zhiyong, who set two successive Olympic records in the snatch — finally settling on a weight of 166 kg.
Cummings landed his first clean and jerk of 180 kg, but soon was trying to catch up and couldn’t lift 190, which is less than his personal best of 192 kg, before trying and failing at 198kg. Then he watched as the 27-year-old Zhiyong set the world record at the same weight.
“I’m in a different pond, obviously,” Cummings said. “It is my first Olympics, and I had higher expectations for myself.”
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