Eric Weddle's cousin, Sarah Robles, lifts more than him, and he's not ashamed to admit it.
"It's not even close," he said. "She's amazing."
Robles is an Olympic weightlifter who will compete in the Rio games this month. She has been called the "strongest woman in America," and has three national championships to prove it.
Robles also competed in the 2012 London Olympics super-heavyweight class and finished seventh in the world. She put up 584 total pounds between the snatch and clean and jerk, which was the most of any American. She was 64 pounds away from medaling.
Robles has an interesting backstory. She was a top-ranked shot putter in high school but made the transition to Olympic-style lifts in 2008, which meant forgoing her college scholarships. Leading up to the 2012 Olympics, she was living on less than $400 a month.
She did this all despite having an abnormality in her arm known as Madelung's deformity, which is a malformed wrist and wrist bones that makes lifting quite painful. She'll be making a big comeback in Rio, as she recently endured a two-year sanction from the International Weightlifting Federation for testing positive for a prohibited substance.
Weddle and Robles grew up together. She's his first cousin.
"She's just an amazing individual," Weddle said. "I look up to her in a lot of ways – the way she's grown up, the hardships she's gone through. She's overcome them and now it's her second time in the Olympics. It's pretty awesome."
Let's all join Weddle in rooting for Robles!
