By Storms Reback

After Harrison Maurus set a new American senior record and youth world record in the clean and jerk on his way to winning the 77-kg division at the 2017 IWF Youth World Championships in April in Bangkok, some started comparing the 18-year-old to one of the greatest U.S. Olympic weightlifters of all time, Oscar Chaplin III. 

Maurus will have a chance to prove himself worthy of the comparisons in his first senior event, the Senior Pan-American Championships which started last Thursday in Miami and will finish this Thursday. 

Like Chaplin, who won his first national title when he was 11 and made the junior national team when he was 12, Maurus exploded onto the weightlifting scene at a very young age, but it's what he's done since that impresses Chaplin the most. 

"He's not rushing to lift weight he's not ready for (it) yet," said Chaplin. "He's working tirelessly on his technique. And because of this patient approach, he's not getting hurt. I can honestly say by his age I had pretty much hurt everything."

When asked about the formula that's helped him to achieve so much success at such a young age -- be patient, polish your technique, don't get hurt -- Maurus acknowledged that he had the endgame in mind. "I have goals that I chase," he said, "but when I get there I get there. I'm not on a time schedule. I'm only able to progress as fast as I'm able to. You don't want to go crazy. You've got to stay safe."

Both Chaplin and Maurus were quick to praise Maurus' longtime coach Kevin Simons for not pushing Maurus too hard too fast.  

"I come from pretty good genetics," said Maurus. "I do everything I need to do to be strong. I keep up on my sleep, recovery, food. But I think a lot of it is how Kevin teaches. Kevin's awesome at teaching technique."

Chaplin agreed with Maurus' assessment. "I think [Maurus] had the potential to lift a lot more weight when he was younger," he said. "But I think his coach held him back to work on his technique, which I highly condone. I think he did a good job making sure he didn't do anything that exceeded his -- I guess you could say -- technique level. I don't think I've heard of him being seriously injured or even injured at all. That's where most coaches fall short."

The Gymnastics-Weightlifting Crossover

The crossover from gymnastics to weightlifting isn't incredibly popular, but Maurus may end up changing that. He devoted four years of his life to gymnastics before he and Simons, then his gymnastics coach at Auburn Gymnastics Center in Auburn, Washington, made an almost mutual discovery: they were over the sport.  

Simons, a former level 10 gymnast who weightlifted at Washington State University, turned his attention to CrossFit -- he would go on to finish 37th at the 2015 CrossFit Games -- and he encouraged Maurus to give it a try.

"Kevin recruited me," said Maurus. "It took me two weeks to realize I hated cardio. It was a pretty terrible two weeks."

However, something good came from Maurus' CrossFit experience: he discovered he had a preternatural aptitude for powerlifting. When he was 11, he routinely squatted twice his body weight and broke national records in training. On his 12th birthday, he entered his first competition, the Washington State Powerlifting Championships, and shattered the national record with a 100kg squat.

"Walking into powerlifting, we really didn't know what was going on," said Maurus. "Kevin was new to it, and I had no clue what I was doing. But, apparently, we were doing something right."

Six months later, Maurus broke more national records at the powerlifting youth nationals, although he came away less than impressed by the competition. "It was me and one other guy and I won by decent margins, and then there was nothing else for me to do. I'm a competitive person. I like to test myself against other people. One other person in the whole meet to compete against wasn't enough. I was like, 'What now?'"

Fine-tuning His Technique

The answer? Olympic weightlifting.

Soon Simons was helping Maurus with his snatch and clean and jerk.

According to Chaplin, making this transition isn't easy. "When you're trying to figure weightlifting out, especially coming from [powerlifting], it's really hard," he said. "I've worked with some powerlifters, and they're like, 'I've done powerlifting, so this stuff should be easy,' and a week later they're like, 'Man, I just can't figure it out.' You've got to put in your time."

Maurus did, and just a year later he was invited to train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was 13.

"Going to the Training Center was really good because Kevin was still a new coach," said Maurus. "He'd really never had any professional coaching himself. He taught himself how to lift, and he taught me how to lift. It was good for him to see what a national coach needs to do to be a national coach. It also helped solidify my stance: this is what I was going to do."

Maurus has returned to the Olympic Training Center half a dozen times and credits the experience with fine-tuning his technique. During a recent visit, some of the coaches, including Chaplin, noticed he was throwing his hips around more than he should during his start.

"We've been working on my dynamic start," explained Maurus. "I used to start and then go up and then all the way down into the bottom of my squat and back up, and that's where I pull from. I started working on more of a static start, so it's up and then down parallel, instead of this whole loopy thing."

Another area Maurus has been working to improve is his snatch, which, like that of fellow weightlifting prodigy C.J. Cummings, isn't quite as strong as his clean and jerk. "It switches every competition," said Maurus. "Sometimes I'll close the gap. I'll have a good snatch day and a bad clean and jerk day. Another time, I'll make one snatch, three clean and jerks, and blow it out of the water."

Maurus and Simons have spent so much time working on Maurus' snatch Maurus has started to think the problem might not be completely physical. "We've been attacking it from one angle for so long it might be good to switch something up and see what happens," he said. "There's also a little bit of a mental thing, too. I think once I get past 150kgs it'll jump up again. I just need to go for it one day."

All the hard work Maurus has put in at the gym can be seen in the results he's achieved in international competition. In 2016, he finished second at the Junior Pan American Championships as well as the Youth World Championships before breaking through with the signature performance of his young career last year: his victory at the IWF Youth World Championships.

Putting Up Huge Numbers

Prior to competing in the Pan-American Championships, Maurus seemed more concerned with beating his own personal marks than the competition he'll face. There are a lot of numbers involved.

When asked what his goals at the Pan-Ams were, he said, "Ideally, 150kgs and 200kgs; realistically, 145kgs and 188kgs," before settling on something in between. "Mid to high 140s and mid to low 190s, that'd be a good day for me."

If he lifts more than 192kgs in the clean and jerk, he'll be breaking his own record, which he set at the Youth World Championships in April.

His long-term goals are ambitious but -- given his rapid progress -- also perfectly reasonable. "If I can clean and jerk 210 and snatch mid to high 160s, I'd be happy with that," he said. "Of course, more world records are always in the back of my mind, but those are a little farther out there."

Another number to consider: 77kg, the weight he's been competing at for a bit longer than expected. "We keep saying I'm going to move up and then I weigh in for a competition and I weigh 75kgs," said Maurus. "Moving up to 85kgs might happen at the start of next year, but it could also not. It depends on what I weigh at Pan-Ams and Worlds, if I can still make weight easily."

And, of course, there's what might be the biggest number of them all -- 2020. "We set goals, and one of my goals is to make it to the Olympics," Maurus said. "I like to think I have a good shot."

Beyond the huge numbers Maurus has been putting up in competition, Chaplin is more impressed by Maurus' polished technique. "When I saw him at the camps we did here in Oakland a couple of months back, what amazed me was how consistent he was," said Chaplin. "Every snatch was in the same position each time. Every clean and jerk was in the same position each time. That's what I like about his technique right now. Most people don't take the time to figure out where what I call 'the sweet spot' is, but he's obviously put in the work to figure out where it is and it's showing in his lifting."

Thanks to all the hard work Maurus has devoted to perfecting his technique, Chaplin sees a very bright future for the rising senior at Auburn Riverside High School. "If he can just stay focused, I don't see any limits for him," he said. "I can see him standing on the podium many times."