Greta Galarza teared up when she began talking about her former weightlifting trainer, Luis Arenas, who died from a heart attack in 2014, and she has dedicated this season to his memory.
“(Arenas) saw me when I arrived at the gym,” said Galarza, speaking with the help of an interpreter. “He said I might be good for this sport. So he started to train me. … He saw me as an athletic person.”
Galarza is enrolled in specials language courses at Winter Haven and according to her head coach, Amanda Shelby, is improving rapidly with English.
“She can understand English, sometimes she has a hard time answering on her own,” stated Shelby in an email. “As far as finding the correct English words, she has improved tremendously since the beginning of the year.”
Under the direction of Arenas, Galarza developed in a sport that featured both “snatch lifting” and clean-and-jerk competition, where she earned a second-place medal at her first competition in Mexico. In snatch lifting, contestants propel the barbell from the ground to the overhead position in one uninterrupted motion.
“In my first competition, (Arenas) cried with me and that gave me inspiration to keep moving forward,” Galarza said. “He showed me how to respect people when I go to competitions and to the judges. He taught me, if I fail, to keep on doing it, to not get mad, stay positive and keep trying. He taught me to show people you can always do more than you think.”
Galarza became a member of the Puerto Rican team and eventually finished fifth at the 2013 Pan American Games Sub-15 Championships in the 48-kilogram women’s division with a 43-kilo snatch lift and 58-kilo clean-and-jerk, equal to a 222-pound total lift.
But in 2014, the good times came to a screeching halt when Arenas suffered a heart attack during a one-on-one training session with Galarza.
“He was complaining about a back pain,” Galarza said. “(I) told him to go to the hospital. He thought it was only back muscles, but he was actually having a heart attack. It was (1 a.m.) when he went to the hospital.
“At the hospital, he was happy. He had tubes in his mouth. When he took it off, he said, ‘God help me,’ and then passed away.”
When Galarza arrived in Winter Haven she was not aware that a girls weightlifting program was about to begin. After learning of the program, she joined immediately and has finished first in all six of the Blue Devils’ meets, competing in the 110-pound division.
Today she will look to become the 110-pound champion at the first girls county weightlifting championships beginning at noon at George Jenkins High.
And she plans to do it in Arenas’ memory.
“When I go to meets, I can feel him there. I can imagine him watching me and telling me to keep on going, you can do it,” Galarza said.
After the county competition, she hopes to win the district and regional meets and eventually win a title at the FHSAA Class 2A state finals on Feb. 6 at the Kissimmee Civic Center.
“It is definitely possible from the numbers that I saw from state last year, she was ranked like 10th,” Shelby said. “She always has a great attitude and comes to practice ready to work, and she never gets defeated when she doesn’t get a lift. She is an all-around amazing athlete.”
Courtesy of: The Ledger