CJ Cummings hasn’t had many opportunities to learn from his shortcomings, but in those rare instances, he has always come back stronger.
Cummings and coach Ray Jones hope the Beaufort native and weightlifting wunderkind can make history repeat itself.
Cummings’ road to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics hit a bump Saturday in Pattaya, Thailand, where the 19-year-old Olympic hopeful fell short of the podium at the 2019 IWF World Championships.
A four-time junior world champion and two-time youth world champion, Cummings was trying to earn his first medal at the senior world championships, but he finished a disappointing ninth, missing his final attempt in the snatch and his first and third efforts in the clean and jerk, the latter of which was a desperate attempt at 191kg in an effort to sneak onto the podium.
“I know I won’t always have the best competition, but it is frustrating because the past years I’ve never had a good experience at the senior worlds,” Cummings told TeamUSA.org. “It’s frustrating, but I’ll have my day someday.”
Despite the subpar showing in Thailand, Cummings remains a favorite to qualify for the Olympics, as he entered the week ranked second on the 73kg Absolute Ranking List, from which 13 lifters will qualify for Tokyo.
“Unlike typical CJ, he put a ton of unnecessary pressure on himself,” Jones said. “He has had such quality competition lately that we are going to call this one
