Mary Theisen-Lappen, the strongest woman in Indiana, is hoping to become the strongest woman in the United States by the time the 2024 Paris Olympics come around.

But in the weightlifting world, qualifying for the Olympics is nearly impossible.

“If you think about track and field and swimming, which are probably the two more prominent competitions in the Olympics, track and field get 1,700 athletes that can go to the Olympics,” said Wil Fleming, Theisen-Lappen’s weightlifting coach. “Swimming gets 1,300 athletes that get to go to the Olympics …  weightlifting on the other hand, because it's not a big moneymaker, only gets 100 spots.”

Only one person from each weight class in the United States will qualify, and Theisen-Lappen, who hails from Bloomington, is up against some stiff competition. She is in the same weight class as Sarah Robles, a two-time Olympic bronze medalist for the sole spot.

But Theisen-Lappen is giving Robles a run for her money in qualifying events.

There are seven qualifying opportunities for weightlifters across the world to raise their overall ranking ahead of the Paris Olympics, and those hoping to go to Paris need to go to at least five — the 2023 IWF World Championships in Saudi Arabia, the 2024 IWF World Cup in Thailand, and three other events within the timeline of their choosing.

The rankings are determined by the total weight of their lifts of the snatch, clean and jerk, and clean and press, through all of the qualifying events.

Right now, Theisen-Lappen is just behind Robles in the female +87kg rankings, but the 33-year-old is finding her stride at the right time, beating Robles in their most recent event in Cuba. While Robles, 35, is still ahead of her in the total rankings, Theisen-Lappen would have moved 1kg ahead of Robles in the total weight rankings on her last attempt if it wasn’t for the judges’ call of an illegal lift.

Now Theisen-Lappen, who barely traveled internationally before becoming a weightlifter, is on the verge of becoming the strongest woman in America.

“It seems like (Theisen-Lappen’s) trajectory is up, whereas Sarah is, you know, this incredible competitor who's won everything, but her biggest lifts have happened in the past,” Fleming said. “It seems like right now, (Robles) is such a competitor and such a professional. I'm sure she could have more big lifts soon, but you know, my bet would be on Mary.”

But even if she doesn’t make it to the Olympics, she has had the ride of her life as a competitive weightlifter. After all, this career path wasn’t something she ever dreamed of.

“I definitely did not expect this, but I'm gonna try to own it and try to have a good time while I can,” Theisen-Lappen said. “I know it's not gonna last forever.”

Becoming a weightlifter

Theisen-Lappen didn’t even think of competitive weightlifting as something she could do until well into her athletic career.

Theisen-Lappen, an Eau Claire, Wis., native, grew up in the world of track and field and had always planned on being a throws coach when she was done competing. She was a Division II national champion in discus at Winona State University before transferring to Indiana State, where she became a two-time All-American in shot put and weight throw.

After college, she fulfilled her goal of becoming a throws coach at Division III University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh.

Weightlifting wasn’t even on her mind. That is, until a friend suggested her to a weightlifting transitional athlete program — a project that takes athletes from other sports (typically throwers from track teams) and develops them into professional weightlifters.

She took the leap and started in the program in 2018.

For three years, Theisen-Lappen did double-duty. By day, she was still a throws coach, because that was what paid the bills. After work, she trained remotely with coaches from all over the Midwest.

First, she trained with a local coach — one of her friends, who had another full-time job and a young family that was based in Wisconsin. But as she got more serious about competition, he recommended a full-time weightlifting coach in Chicago. Theisen-Lappen worked with the Chicago coach for a couple years before moving on to Fleming — a coach based in Bloomington — in 2020.

At the same time, she was furloughed from her job during the COVID pandemic. So, she worked solely on weightlifting. She hit new highs in those periods, so, she started thinking, what would happen if she did it full-time?

“I basically had five months of staying at home just weightlifting, and I got super, super strong,” Theisen-Lappen said. “ I definitely got worse when I went back to work, and that was kind of where that conversation came into play. And I had a really good trial period.”

“... I was able to just put more effort into just other things like bodywork and massage and had time to do those things that I was missing on before, just sleeping better and having more time to just relax,” Theisen-Lappen added. “I definitely got stronger in 2020 and then realized when I went back to work, when I got less strong, that I needed to probably figure out a way to make it work.”

Around that same time, Theisen-Lappen was competitive enough at weightlifting that it started to pay the bills. While Fleming was willing to do remote work with Theisen-Lappen, they both knew working together in-person would give her the best chance at an Olympic berth.

And it helped the housing market was hot in 2021, giving Theisen-Lappen a good deal on selling her home in Oshkosh. So, she and husband, Casey Lappen, packed up and moved to Bloomington.

“We put our house up for sale and sold it two days,” Theisen-Lappen said. “And then we moved down here like a couple of months after that. So basically, it was just about going all in, finishing this weightlifting thing with no regrets. That's the plan, just finishing this whenever it is done — whether that's next year or the year after.”

Finishing a short career on a high note

Theisen-Lappen knows she started weightlifting late — if she’s not competing against women who are 10 years her junior, they’ve been weightlifting competitively for 15 years. But even though she’s only five years into her career, the 33-year old only sees herself competing on the Olympic and international level for around two more years.

For someone who was raised in the United States and had only left the country through the northern border to Canada, Theisen-Lappen has had a host of new experiences in her newfound career.

“It's cool to see places that I never would have seen,” Theisen-Lappen said. “Even for PanAm’s, it was in a really small town on like the tip of Argentina. It was a really, really beautiful place that I never would have even heard of, let alone visited. Of course, it’s a lot to travel and stuff but it's also cool to be able to get that experience.”

When it comes to ending her career, Theisen-Lappen already has an ending competition in mind: the 2025 IWF World Championships.

That event will likely be in Norway, and Theisen-Lappen has strong Norwegian heritage. It will also mark the potential start of one of her teammates’ senior weightlifting careers — a good full circle moment for the end of her career.

“I'm over 50% Norwegian, and it's not like somewhere that I feel like a lot of places people have been, so that's like really just part of it,” Theisen-Lappen said. “I also have a teammate that's a junior athlete, and we always talked about that would be his first year as a senior athlete. So we always joke that it'd be like the perfect meet for him if he makes the senior team and I retire because him and I are training partners.”

After she ends her weightlifting career, she plans to make another big move in her life: starting a family.

“I want to have kids, whenever that happens, I want to make sure I’m not waiting too long,” Theisen-Lappen said. “I’d like to be a mom, and my husband would like to be a dad. So, maybe I’ll do ‘25, maybe I won’t, but that seems like a fun place to end it.”

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Paris Olympics: Indiana weightlifter Mary Theisen-Lappen eyes 2024 bid