The Golden Promise | # 261
+ The Mysorean with a Hollywood Star
Friends,
To paraphrase a famous quote - All Olympic golds are equal but some are more equal than the others. Here’s a story of one such medal
In Beijing’s humid summer of 2008, a stocky weightlifter stepped onto the platform to fulfil a promise he had whispered at a grave.
This is the story of Matthias Steiner.
Things we learnt this week 🤓
Matthias Steiner grew up in Obersulz, Austria, apprenticing as a plumber before discovering weightlifting at 13. He got a great 18th birthday present - a positive diagnosis of type-1 diabetes. Doctors advised him to dial back sport. Instead, he injected insulin, logged glucose, and kept lifting.
The Olympics Motto is 'Faster, higher, stronger and the 105+kg category in weightlifting exemplifies this. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Matthias Steiner represented Austria, where he lifted 405kg in total and finished 7th.
In 2004, a German woman named Susann Loeser saw him on TV competing. She kept asking Eurosport TV for his contact details. Finally, Eurosport gave Steiner's email address. Susan finally contacted Steiner and agreed to meet - It was love at first lift sight.
Matthias Steiner moved to Germany thereafter and married Susan in 2005. In the 2005 European Weightlifting championships while representing Austria, he missed his first attempt as he disagreed with his coach on the starting weight to lift. He decided not to compete for Austria ever again. He applied for German citizenship. Since he decided not to compete for Austria and wasn't a German citizen yet, he was effectively outside of the World's elite.
On 16 July 2007—thirteen months before the Olympic Games—Susann died when an SUV veered into her small car outside Heidelberg. The grief cost him 7-8 kg of body mass and nearly his career. The 22-year-old’s photo never left Steiner’s gym bag, and he resumed training, vowing to “bring home the medal she always believed in”.
In January 2008 he was granted German citizenship. And the first thing Steiner did upon learning the news was visit his wife’s grave to let her know the news. In a pre-Olympic tournament, he lifted 423 kilos to qualify for the Olympics.
At the Olympics, the battle for Gold was expected to be a close one between Evgeny Chigishev from Russia and Viktors Ščerbatihs from Latvia.
In the snatch section, Matthais Steiner lifted *just* 203kg which was well below his competitors. Steiner could not complete his final attempt at the snatch at 207 kilos. In the clean and jerk round, his first attempt at 246 kilos was also a failure.
Chigishev and Ščerbatihs lifted 240 and 242 kilos respectively to tighten their positions in the top 2 after their first lift. Chigishev then lifted 247 kilos and then improved it to 250 kilos. He had finished his set with a total of 460 kilos.
After his first failed attempt at 246 kilos, Steiner attempted a lift of 248 kilos and was successful. With 1 lift to go, Steiner was in the bronze medal position. For his final lift he asked for a weight of 258 kilos - a whopping jump of 10 kilograms.
Steiner was successful with this lift and emerged victorious with a combined lift weight of 461 kilos.
"I managed to lift it because I had this strong, innermost urge... I am not the superstitious type, I do not believe in higher powers, but I hope she saw me. I wish."
Steiner turned his tragic loss into the inspiration he needed to fulfil his promise to Susann: to become an Olympic gold medallist in Beijing. Choking back tears and holding a photograph of Susann, Steiner took his place on the medallists’ podium.
Post retirement from competitive weightlifting, Steiner realized that a bodyweight of 150 kilos was not sustainable and is a much leaner 90+ kilo person. He is also an accomplished author, TV host and motivational speaker.
Hopefully that’s sufficient motivation for you. Now go lift!
From IWTK, with love 💌
Deepika Padukone isn’t the first Indian with a Hollywood Star. Check out the story of a Mysorean who did it before her.
Ramayan or GOT? You decide.
Only In India 🇮🇳
Here’s an excellent example of ground level reporting.
💟 IWTK