Australia - Bodybuilding .com

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Born on 20 June 1983, Brisbane Australia, Deborah Lovely competed in the 2004 Olympic Games, and will be the only female the represent Australia in weightlifting in 2008.

Her best lifts: 

• Snatch 236lbs [108kg]
• Clean & Jerk 288lbs [131kg]
• Total 525lbs [239kg]
  

- 2006 Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist

- 2004 Olympic Games (12th place)

- 2002 Commonwealth Games - Silver Medallist in Snatch, Clean and Jerk and Total.

- 2003 Junior Oceania Championships best lifter

- 2002 World Championship representative (9th Place).

- 2003, 2004 Oceania Championships - Gold Medallist

- 2003 Commonwealth Championships 75Kg - Silver Medallist

- Australian Representative 2001 East Asian Games.

- Australian Representative 2001,2003 World Junior Championships - best placing 5th

- Open and U20 Best Lifter 2002 Australian Championships

- 2002 Australian Open and U20 75Kg - Gold Medallist.

- 2001 Australian U/20 U/18 75kg - Gold Medallist.

- Under 18 Australian Recorder Holder 75+kg - Snatch, Clean & Jerk, Total.

From the Daily Telegraph:

 "Weightlifting champion Deborah Lovely concedes she has no chance of winning a medal at the Beijing Olympics because she is drug-free.In fact, Australia's first female Olympic weightlifting contender says performance-enhancing drugs are so widespread in the sport that it's not a case of who is doping, but rather who isn't.

"I'm never going to be an Olympic champion in weightlifting or place any higher than 12th in the world and I know that because I don't take drugs," Lovely told The Saturday Daily Telegraph. "I look at these other athletes (medallists at the Olympics) and they tell me what they take and I've seen them take it, and they can't believe I train without taking drugs."

The Brisbane-based Lovely said she was so disillusioned with the drug cheats after the 2004 Olympics, in which she placed 12th in the 75kg class, she nearly gave the sport away. The 24-year-old, who will contest the super heavyweight class in Beijing, scored her spot on the Athens team when rival Caroline Pileggi refused to take a drugs test in Fiji.

Then the only other Australian weightlifting contender on the Athens team, 2003 weightlifting world champion Sergo Chakhoyan, was banned for life from the sport after a second doping violation earlier this year.

And then this week nine athletes from weightlifting and bodybuilding were named in the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority annual report after testing positive to taking banned substances. Six were banned from competing for two years, two received life bans and two have yet to be sanctioned.

Lovely said it was frustrating when women her weight were lifting, with the help of illegal substances, almost twice what she could. She said that in some cultures it had almost become a game of "who can beat the drug tests".She said conversely Australian sport was so stringent with its drug testing that at times she almost felt targeted.

"I was tested nine times in the lead-up to the Olympics within a couple of weeks so it is a little intense," Lovely said. "Sometimes you feel like you're targeted, when you get that knock on the door and you have to pee in front of someone."

So why has Lovely never been tempted by drugs?

"To be honest I don't like the (thought of) side-effects, I don't agree with it, it's cheating and I'd like to see what I can lift naturally," she said."Consequently I'll be able to look back on my career and say I gave it my best effort and that's what I did. "I can live with that, and I don't care if other people can't. There is more to life than sport."

© The Daily Telegraph, story by Alex Murdoch

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