Port Charlotte High grad wins first place at USA Weightlifting Nationals

With every rep, Angelina Dabney, 19, gets stronger. She’s focused on her technique to hit her target weight.

“You only have six attempts to show everything you’ve been training for leading up to that meet,” Dabney said. “Once finally get the number that you’ve been chasing for and hoping that one day you’d get and you finally get it and you lift it, it’s electric feeling throughout your whole body.”

That feeling got Dabney hooked on the sport, but when she was at Port Charlotte High School, she was playing soccer as well. She had to choose between the two sports.

Dabney recalled, “I said I’ve been doing soccer all my life I’m not getting nowhere. I’m doing weightlifting. I’m doing pretty good.”

Ever since, Dabney has been in the gym at Crossfit Murdock every day.

“She has exceeded any expectations of this,” Dabney’s coach and gym owner Deb Krienke said. “It should be a gradual increase but she turned it into just this this meteoric rise in strength and technique.”

That was showcased at the USA Weightlifting Nationals in Pittsburgh. Dabney came home with a first place finish in the 59 KG Junior Division after lifting 189 pounds in the snatch event and 229 pounds in the clean and jerk.

Dabney explained, “Last year it was my first national meet. And I got third place and were like oh my gosh you got third place and this is your first ever nationals meet since high school like that’s amazing. I was just hoping to do what I did last year and make podium first or third it didn’t even matter. but coming home first place was just it was crazy.”