Dream finally comes true: South Elgin weightlifting legend is going to Tokyo, as a referee
When women’s weightlifting became an Olympic sport in 2000, Corinne Grotenhuis had just torn the meniscus in her knee.
“I was also 35, so I was probably too old for the Olympics,” Grotenhuis admitted. “But I really wanted to go.”
If anyone deserved to go to that first Olympics, it was Grotenhuis, who lives in South Elgin.
She’s a pioneer in women’s weightlifting, getting her start in the sport in 1981 when she was 15, and the sport for women was only two years old.
