Tara Nott-Cunningham (born Tara Nott, May 10, 1972) is an American former

Olympic weightlifter Olympic weightlifting, or Olympic-style weightlifting (officially named Weightlifting), is a sport in which athletes compete in lifting a barbell loaded with weight plates from the ground to overhead, with each athlete trying to successfully lift ...

who competed for the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

in both the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games. She is the only athlete to have trained for three different sports at the

United States Olympic Training Center The United States Olympic & Paralympic Training Centers (OPTCs) are two campuses created by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) as training facilities for its Olympic and Paralympic athletes. They are located in Colorado Sprin ...

(

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

, and

weightlifting Weightlifting generally refers to activities in which people lift Weight training#Equipment, weights, often in the form of dumbbells or barbells. People lift various kinds of weights for a variety of different reasons. These may include various t ...

). Born in

Del Rio, Texas Del Rio is a city and the county seat of Val Verde County in southwestern Texas, United States. The city is 152 miles west of San Antonio. As of 2020, Del Rio had a population of 34,673. History The Spanish established a small settlement south o ...

, Tara Nott grew up in

Stilwell, Kansas Stilwell is an unincorporated community in Johnson County, Kansas, United States, and part of the Kansas City metropolitan area. The ZIP Code for Stilwell is 66085. History Stilwell had its start when the Missouri Pacific Railroad began to plan t ...

. Her coaches were Mike Gattone and Bob Morris. She attended Blue Valley Middle and High Schools in Stilwell, KS and Colorado College in Colorado Springs, CO. She is married to free style wrestler Casey Cunningham. In

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, she became the first US weightlifter to win Olympic gold since Chuck Vinci in 1960, and the first US female weightlifter ever to win Olympic gold. The original gold medal winner, Bulgaria's Izabela Dragneva, was stripped of her gold after testing positive for furosemide, and the gold was awarded to Nott who initially placed second. At the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics ( el, Θερινοί Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες 2004, ), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad ( el, Αγώνες της 28ης Ολυμπιάδας, ) and also known as Athens 2004 ( el, Αθήνα 2004), ...

, she ranked 10th in the 48 kg category. She was inducted into the International Weightlifting Hall of Fame in 2015.

Weightlifting achievements

*Senior National Champion (1996, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2002–2004) *World Championships Team Member (1997–1999, 2003, 2004) *

Pan Am Games The Pan American Games (also known colloquially as the Pan Am Games) is a continental multi-sport event in the Americas featuring summer sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The competition is held ...

Champion (1999, 2003) *Olympic Champion (2000) *Olympic Games team member (2004) *Multiple All-Time Senior American record holder in snatch,

clean and jerk The clean and jerk is a composite of two weightlifting movements, most often performed with a barbell: the clean and the jerk. During the ''clean'', the lifter moves the barbell from the floor to a racked position across the deltoids, without res ...

, and total

Notes and references

1972 births Living people Olympic gold medalists for the United States in weightlifting Weightlifters at the 2000 Summer Olympics Weightlifters at the 2004 Summer Olympics Weightlifters at the 1999 Pan American Games Weightlifters at the 2003 Pan American Games Olympic medalists in weightlifting American female weightlifters Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Pan American Games gold medalists for the United States Pan American Games medalists in weightlifting People from Stilwell, Kansas Sportspeople from Johnson County, Kansas People from Del Rio, Texas Medalists at the 1999 Pan American Games Medalists at the 2003 Pan American Games 20th-century American sportswomen 21st-century American sportswomen {{US-weightlifting-bio-stub, Nott, Tara