photo: Make A Champ website
A 17-year-old Saskatoon girl has a world record under her belt and a couple of firsts for Canada. Etta Love set a new world record in weightlifting recently at the Junior World Championships in Spain. She clean and jerked 146 kilograms, which is just under 322 pounds. The previous record was 145. It’s Canada’s first world record in modern weightlifting and it’s also a first for a Canadian woman.
Etta trains anywhere from two-and-a-half to four hours a day, but she adds that the time doesn’t include the physio that happens for recovery after training. When asked how she celebrated her world record, Etta says she spent a few extra days in Spain and has had a few little celebrations back in Saskatoon to make the feeling last longer. But, Etta is also thinking ahead to Bahrain in December for the Senior World Championship. She hopes to break the record for a snatch lift, and then combined with the clean and jerk, it would be another record for breaking both, so three records in total. Etta says the hard work is all the training and mental preparation ahead of the competitions and then getting on the stage is the fun part. Another of her goals is to compete in the 2028 Olympics
Love is also a high school student, doing her studies online. She says her journey to weightlifting began when her mom Emma Love would go to cross fit at the gym when she was three and so while she was working out, Etta would play with the toy barbells. Etta began kids cross fit at five years old, then youth weightlifting, followed by competitions around ten years old, and at 13, she began training with an international coach.
One of her biggest challenges is finding funding to compete. “I just made my first senior world team and I have had to turn down, I think two or three senior teams in the last few years, because I don’t have any funding, and so a lot of it right now is community based funding.” Etta has a fundraising page on the “make a champ” website, which is like Go Fund Me, but for sports. Click here for the link.
Along with training and her schooling, Etta is also spending some time with her parents on the campaign trail. Etta is the daughter of Matt Love, the incumbent in Saskatoon Eastview in the provincial election.
