Worth the weight
SLIPPERY ROCK — With nothing to do while in quarantine, Gianna Bedel was looking for an outlet.
Any kind of outlet.
She decided to pick up a hobby close to home.
Bedel, a junior at Slippery Rock High School, had watched her mother, Melissa, dive deep into weightlifting.
Gianna decided to do the same.
It filled a void, a chasm left by the coronavirus pandemic that wiped out Gianna's sophomore season on the Rockets' track and field team.As a freshman, Gianna advanced to the PIAA Track and Field Championships and cleared 5 feet, 4 inches for an unexpected fourth-place finish.She needed something to scratch her athletic itch.“Gianna said, 'All right, we have to do something because just sitting around the house isn't working,'” Melissa said. “She really got into it.”Every day, Gianna hit the weights. Hard. Her mother set up a program and they overhauled her diet.Out with the junk food. In with the protein shakes.What has resulted is a stronger, more explosive Gianna Bedel this spring.At the Butler Girls Track and Field Invitational Saturday, Gianna cleared 5-5.She thinks she can go higher.“If I could get to 5-7, that would be amazing,” Gianna said. “I'd be extremely happy with that. I definitely can. I just have to get the proper form and I have to have a good day.”The problem isn't going to be with her hops — Gianna is easily clearing the bar.The hitch so far has been clipping the bar on her way over with her feet.“Snapping my legs over the bar quick enough is what I have to work on,” she said. “I have the height.”Gianna continues to lift weights.During the summer she squatted 250 pounds.“I definitely could not do that freshman year,” she said.Weightlifting is something Gianna said she thinks she may get more serious about in the future.She has a good role model.About seven years ago, Melissa began to dabble in weightlifting and it turned into a passion.She has been a source of inspiration to Gianna and her other kids — Anthony, 19, Sean, 15, and Gabriella, 12.“They're always asking me, 'Make a muscle, Mommy,” Melissa said, chuckling. “I'm always flexing for them.”Gianna hopes to continue to flex her jumping muscles.Her effort at Butler has given her even more confidence.“That was exciting for me,” Gianna said. “I had no idea I could jump that high.”During the basketball season where Gianna is a guard for Slippery Rock, she missed several games while in quarantine. She was in close contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19, but never tested positive herself.She's praying that doesn't happen again this spring.Gianna toyed with moving her studies online, but decided to still attend school in person.“I did ask my teachers to spread me out from other classmates to help me from getting contact traced,” Gianna said. “I was think about going online for track season just because track is way more important to me than any other sport. But it's almost over now, so I might as well just stay in school.”Gianna is hoping to throw some weight around at the state meet again in May.“As a freshman, I didn't really know what the state meet was all about and I didn't really have any expectations,” Gianna said. “But now I know what it's all about and I really want to go back. It was so much fun.”
