[FEATURED] THE BIGGEST LOSER


There are 39 photos of U.S. Olympians that hang in the dining hall at the U.S. Olympic Complex in Colorado Springs, Colo. One of them is a photo of 2012 Olympian Holley Mangold competing in London.


124KG/272.8 POUNDS, COLUMBUS WEIGHTLIFTING CLUB Inside the gym, Mangold is training. It is


a sunny January afternoon, and Mangold is adding weight to the barbell. It has only been 17 months since the Olympic flame was extinguished at the 2012 Games, but much has happened in Mangold’s life that has relit the fire to push for her first Olympic medal. Since the summer of 2012, Mangold has


not only recovered from wrist surgery, but she also dropped 90 pounds as a contestant on the most recent season of NBC’s The Big- gest Loser. “I got a call (from The Biggest Loser), fun-


ny enough, while I was training,” she says. “I thought losing the weight will ultimately help my career, so I needed to take this step. Basi- cally I had a week to decide whether I was going to go out there or not. I decided to go—this was back in June—I was out there


I was succeeding at being big, so it didn’t bother me. As the process went on, as I lost more and more weight, it is definitely for my career, but it makes it easier for when I retire to have better health. When I’m done weightlifting, it’s going to be a lot easier to get down to a nice,


healthy weight than it would have been if I was 350 pounds.” During her time on the show, she was un-


able to lift. Between lack of training and loss of weight, Mangold says she noticed she was weaker. “It was also extremely hard because I had


lost so much weight,” she says. “I wasn’t lifting in the two months I was out there, so I basi- cally forgot how to Snatch and Clean & Jerk. It was like starting from square one. I also had so many commitments with Biggest Loser that I couldn’t get a full cycle in, I was going back and forth traveling, so I haven’t really got- ten to have the dedicated training to get my strength back that I really wanted to.” As she has gotten back into her routine fol-


lowing the show, she has also noticed posi- tive changes.


Despite struggles she has faced, Mangold


“Everything points toward greatness, but it’s just going to take time.”


for two-and-a-half months and I got eliminat- ed because—I firmly believe it was because I started running; I feel like I’m allergic to run- ning. It was a terrible idea. I didn’t lose a lot of weight so I was eliminated.” Mangold weighed in at 351 pounds


when she arrived at The Biggest Loser ranch. Though she was eliminated, she walked away from the experience having lost 96 pounds—more than a quarter of her body weight. “For me, it was all about career,” says Man-


gold. “I never really wanted to lose weight, I just really didn’t care. I didn’t mind being big.


8 >> WEIGHTLIFTING.TEAMUSA.ORG With 90 pounds off of her frame, Man-


gold is not only lifting less of her own body weight, but her bar path is also much closer to her body. “I believe that my quickness is just phe-


nomenal, the bar path is so much closer to me, I move better and I can train longer be- cause I have more stamina,” says Mangold. “Everything points toward greatness, but it’s just going to take time.” Losing the weight is only half of the battle. “I think my thing is I am really good at


maintaining, whether I was maintaining 350, 330 or now maintaining 260, I maintain,” she


says she will work through them and hopes to be even stronger than she was before go- ing on The Biggest Loser. “Biggest Loser was a great opportunity. It


was amazing that I got to meet a ton of re- ally awesome people, but in my eyes, it was a step toward the Olympics,” she says. “It was, to me, another block that I have to get over to get that medal that I’ve always wanted. I am so grateful for the experience and I’ve had such a wonderful time. It’s definitely a top-five experience in my life. I mean, who else gets to do that? “My coach always used to tell me, ‘You


make decisions that either put you further away from medalling or closer to it.’ I felt like that was a decision that brought me closer to it, and that’s what I’m hoping.”


says. “So I really haven’t had that much of a struggle at home. It’s really losing the weight which is hard for me. But staying at the same weight, which is what I’ve been trying to do, is quite easy. I think the hardest thing is after a really hard practice, there’s nothing better than getting a nice, big burrito from Chipot- le. That’s really hard to stay away from. When I’m at home, when I cook my own food, I’m great. When I go out, it’s always a struggle.”


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