Hopkins junior aspires to compete in Paralympics

When junior Sofija Korac moved from Serbia to America as an eight-year-old child, she joined a few wheelchair sports teams to make friends with other kids who shared her interests. As she started out in recreational wheelchair basketball and track and field teams, little did she know that over a decade later, she'd find herself training four times a week with the ultimate goal of competing in the next Paralympic weightlifting competition.

Korac talks about her progression from a young sports enthusiast to a first place-winning weightlifter in both the Junior National Disability championships and the National Adult Powerlifting championships as if it were the only natural thing for her to do. "When I was 15, my track coach said I should try weightlifting," Korac said. Upon entering her first weightlifting competition, Korac got first place in her weight class, and she kept going on with the sport from there.

Now, at 21, Korac competes in and often takes home awards in many different wheelchair sports, including the first two she started with -- basketball and track and field -- plus swimming and, of course, weightlifting. Korac admitted that it has become difficult to balance the practice meeting times and traveling requirements for the team sports along with the demanding workload that comes with being a junior majoring in international relations at Hopkins, so she decided to make weightlifting her main focus, since it's a solo sport.

"I like the individual level of lifting because other people don't depend on me," Korac said, noting how she was able to take a week off from school as a freshman to participate in a week-long basketball tournament, but that such a commitment just isn't feasible in the sea of term papers and important finals that are characteristic of an upperclassman's workload.

"Competing as an individual -- I treat it as competing against myself, aiming to compete at my personal best," she said.

And, as of right now, her personal best is a whopping 320 pounds in practice sessions for the upcoming power lifting and bench press competitions, and 265 in her most recent competitive victory. Of course, such an impressive talent comes with an equally impressive amount of practicing -- she does weight-lifting circuits, working different muscle groups in every other session, four times a week, as she prepares for the next big competitions in July. At the requirements of the regime established by her coach, Korac started at 65 percent of her maximum weight capacity in March, and she increased that amount by five percent each week afterwards.

The physical capability is a key component, but Korac noted that "it's not just about having pure strength -- it's the mental aspect, too."

She said that this was a more difficult skill to master than the actual lifting of the heavy weights. "My biggest obstacle was technique at first," she said. "I thought about it too much, like `Am I doing this right?'"

Since then, as Korac participated in more championships, she learned how to overcome any nagging sense of self-doubt. "Honestly, the best way to do really well [in a competition] is not to think about it," Korac said. "You get `in the zone' as you're waiting for your turn to go, and you learn to drown out the crowd."

Though Korac does notice a competitive atmosphere at the championship level, she said that once the events are over, all of the competitors are warm and friendly. "It's like a family, especially at the adult level," she said. "Weightlifting doesn't get nearly as much participation as it should."

Because of this, the athletes have created a close-knit network. "People support you and give you weightlifting tips," Korac said.

Right now, Korac is preparing for two major weightlifting competitions in July -- The Junior National Disability Championships in Tampa, Fla. and the National Adult Powerlifting Championship in Oklahoma. "This year, the adult competition is pivotal because it can qualify you for the Paralympics," Korac said.

Though nothing's official until after the final qualifying rounds in late 2007, Korac is optimistic. Recently, "five of us were invited to a training camp in Oklahoma," she said, implying that there was a fair amount of discussion about the possibility of making it to the 2008 Paralympics between herself and the other four athletes at the training camp. The 2008 Paralympics will be televised, and will take place in the same venues as the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, two weeks afterwards.

Even though Korac has years of experience and practice in weightlifting, she feels a degree of anticipatory anxiety about the many important, high-profile competitions leading up to the ultimate goal in 2008. "I still get just as nervous as when I started," she said. "But once I get out there, in the competition, it all sort of goes away."