Teen world record-holder Etta Love chases Olympic weightlifting dream
From the time she was little, tagging along with her mom to CrossFit classes, it's been a love of pushing boundaries for Saskatoon's Etta Love.
'Every important memory for me, I have a barbell attached to it in some way,' said Love.
These days, the 17-year-old can either be found in her family's garage, which has been turned into a home weightlifting studio, or at Rise Strength Lab, continuing to work on her technique with coach Crystal Derry.
To this point, that technique has made her one of the most talented teenaged weightlifters anywhere on the planet.
'I don't become a different person when I step onto the platform,' said Love. 'I have my own experiences, I have my own emotions and I get to exist on the platform as myself.'
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That joy on the platform is something Derry has seen on a weekly basis from Love, who is pushing towards her first Olympic qualification for Team Canada at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
'We call it the magic of the platform,' said Derry. 'She is this magical little unicorn, I don't know what it is. On the platform really, truly her whole self comes out and it's really beautiful to witness.'
As a toddler copying the movements of her mom Emma Love in the gym, Etta quickly was able to find her passion in weightlifting.
According to Emma, since then the family has done everything they can to help their daughter pursue that passion and achieve greatness on the world stage.
'She was just fascinated by the movements and witnessing a lot of really strong women,' said Emma. 'She started playing with a kid's barbell first and then when she was 10, she was allowed to pick up the real metal barbell. We got home and she said, 'Mom, when I hold it I feel alive.''
Just months after celebrating her 17th birthday, Love became the first Canadian woman to set a world record in weightlifting last September at the Junior World Championships in Leon, Spain.
Completing a clean and jerk of 146 kg, it was a lift that the Saskatoon product had been training years for in breaking the world junior record for the over-87-kg division.
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'She set the bar down and her face kind of flooded with tears and a smile,' said Emma. 'In that moment, it felt just very frozen and magical.'
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The mark of 146 kg was a number which Etta had secretly written down years prior, giving her a goal to trail towards since her training began to take shape over the course of the pandemic.
Slowly, she would allow more people into her world record goal and many supporters were in the room when she made Canadian history in Spain.
'The world record for me because it was something that I had wanted when I was really young, it felt like a promise I had to keep to myself,' said Etta.
'It felt like something that I knew I had to try. It wasn't that I had to achieve it, but I knew that I had to keep that promise.'
Love not only was able to become the first Canadian woman to break a world record in the sport, but joined Doug Hepburn as the only Canadians to accomplish the feat when he stood alone in the clean and press in the 1950s.
For Derry, it was the culmination of years of work for the teenaged talent and was something they had been constantly building towards.
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'I actually had many times visualized her breaking that world record and what that would look and feel like,' said Derry.
'It was so surreal, but at the same time it was like I knew it was going to happen.'
Entering 2025, Love is ranked third in the world in her weight class and is aiming to take that next step from the junior to the senior level.
Despite having a much lighter season compared to the calendar in 2024, Love and her family are sorting through some tough choices with limited funding coming from the national sport organization Weightlifting Canada.
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Already paying a significant portion of Etta's travels equaling four trips around the world last year alone, they've had to cancel their trip to the 2025 Junior World Championships in Peru.
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'It was definitely a struggle because there's not a lot of funding and that definitely continues especially as a junior athlete competing at a senior level,' said Etta.
'I guess the thing that it takes away is that celebration, when I don't get to compete that's where I put in the work. That's where I get to see what I've been working towards.'
According to Emma, those decisions have always belonged to her daughter regarding which competitions are vital to her jump to the senior level.
However, she said it doesn't make those conversations any easier.
'I think this last one was hard because there was a very good chance of her winning junior worlds and I think she wanted that,' said Emma.
'The way she described it to me was that maybe her ego wanted that, but she knew that her bigger goals didn't need it.'
While Love isn't competing at Junior Worlds in Peru, she is gearing up for a competition which has even more personal significance for her.
After years of booking flights and accommodations in countries across the world, Love will be competing for gold at the 2025 Canadian Junior Weightlifting Championships in her hometown in June.
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She'll only need to drive less than five minutes away from her family home to the nearby Nutana Curling Club.
'Some of my biggest memories in lifting have been in other countries and have been travelling,' said Etta.
'I think it's very meaningful to me that I get to have my next bigger competition at home and it gets to be where I have friends, family and loved ones here. That's very special to me that I get to be here because it's where I began.'
The possibility of wearing the maple leaf in Los Angeles is a thought which Love thinks about every time she sets up her barbell and steps onto a weightlifting platform these days.
The opportunity seems far away in 2028, but it's getting closer by the day.
'I get to love weightlifting not because I have to, but because I want to,' said Etta. 'I think that's really motivating me for the Olympics and whatever else.'
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