“I just picked it up as something to do – it was an after-school intramural for middle schoolers,” she recalls. “I didn’t really expect to excel at it.”

And yet before she knew it, Gordon found herself perched on the platform at the 2000 Senior Nationals, one lift away from going to the Junior World Championships.

“That’s when I was like, ‘Wow, you’re kind of good at this. This might be something you should stick with!’” Gordon says.

Gordon placed 15th at Junior Worlds in 2000, and she hasn’t looked back. After almost three years as a resident athlete at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., the twenty-year-old has racked up a hefty list of accomplishments. In 2002, she finished second at Senior Nationals and 15th at the Senior World Championships. Gordon earned her fifth Junior National title and her second Junior World bronze medal this year. She also won the 2003 Titan Games in her weight class, 63 kg.

She is currently ranked first nationally in her weight class for both juniors and seniors and is ranked second overall nationally behind 2000 Olympic gold medalist Tara Nott Cunningham. In the world standings, Gordon is No. 20 for seniors and No. 5 for juniors in her weight class. She holds six American records at 58 kg, three in the 16-and-under age group and three in the 17-20 age group.

Gordon and the women of USA Weightlifting face what may be their biggest challenge to date as the 2003 World Championships get underway tomorrow in Vancouver, B.C. The results of the World Championships determine how many Olympic spots the U.S. will get for the 2004 Athens Games. The seven-woman team must finish in the top 14 to earn three spots and in the top nine to earn four.

“My goal for World Championships is to come in top 15 and I’d like to help my team out as much as possible and get as many points as I can,” Gordon says. “Every single girl is going to have to make every single lift in order for us to earn those spots. Everybody has to be on, we have to have the best day of our lives for that to happen.”

At the 1999 World Championships, Team USA shocked the competition by coming in sixth and earning four spots for the 2000 Sydney Games, the inaugural Olympics for women’s weightlifting.

“All the girls we have right now are in pretty good shape,” says Gordon, the youngest member of the U.S. World Team by three years. “Hopefully we’ll be able to pull it out again.”

Usolympicteam.com caught up with the weightlifting phenom to talk about dealing with competition pressure, life at the Olympic Training Center and her tattoo.

Q1: Being a woman in what is often still considered a man’s sport, do people ever respond strangely to you when they find out you’re a weightlifter?

CARISSA GORDON: Yeah. People are like, “That’s why your neck and your traps are so big!” (laughs) That’s what I got a lot when I was in high school. People can be not so nice to each other because they’re immature … but as we got older people started to respect it more and understand and be more supportive of it. Back then it was, “You’re a girl, you can’t lift weights. You’re not strong!” and by the time I was a junior and a senior people were asking about me, coming to my competitions and what not. I still get the occasional people who are like, “You lift weights? You’re a girl. Ugh.” It’s usually out of intimidation, jealousy, things like that.

Q2: What was it like moving out to live at the Olympic Training Center at such a young age?

CARISSA GORDON: I graduated from high school early in order to come out here. I came out when I had just turned 17. The head coach at the time called me and told me they’d have a spot for me … and I was like, “Well, I’ll be there in February.” Didn’t even talk to my mom and dad about it or anything. After I got off the phone with him, my mom was doing the dishes – I’ll never forget it – and I walked in and said, “I’m moving to Colorado,” and she just like flipped out. She was happy for me, but she spazzed out.

But coming out here was a real eye-opener. It was like, “What do you mean I have to do my own laundry? What do you mean I have to make my bed?” It made me realize all the stuff that my mom and dad did for me that I had to do for myself to become an adult. And also, when I came out here I was training with Tara [Nott Cunningham], who was 30, so it was time to grow up and be serious, no goofing off!

Q3: Who is your favorite resident athlete at the OTC?

CARISSA GORDON: My roommate, [weightlifter] Danica Rue. I’ve known her for about six years and she’s had a couple of injuries but she’s stuck with it. She had a bad year one year and hurt her elbow, and then the next year she hurt her back. And she kept pushing through it, she didn’t give up and she was positive through it all. And now she gets to go to the World Championships. I admire her for that. She doesn’t know that, but I admire her a lot. She’s helped me through a lot of things -- we’ve got a very close relationship.

And also [weightlifter] Shane Hamman, because he lives right down the hall and always makes bacon on his George Foreman grill!

Q4: Do you have any nicknames?

CARISSA GORDON: Buddha, because I have a little Buddha belly. (laughs) People won’t understand that! Riss has always been my nickname, all of my family and friends called me that growing up, and my coach. Or Riss-a-ruby, that’s what my aunt and my grandma call me.

Q5: You’re sporting a new tattoo on your foot. Tell me about that.

CARISSA GORDON: I got my tattoo about two months ago. I got it in memory of my older sister, because she passed away on December 26, 2001. We were so close growing up, even though we were eight years apart. It's five little footprints and it symbolizes her and I walking together though life -- so she’s always with me, watching over me. Its colored in blue and purple because blue is my favorite color and purple is hers. They’re kind of swirled in together. It makes me feel good whenever I look at it, it makes me think of all the happy times we had together. It was worth the pain!

Q6: Was your sister a big supporter of your weightlifting? Did she come to your meets?

CARISSA GORDON: Oh yeah! The last competition that she came to was actually three weeks before she passed away. It was in Syracuse, New York at the American Open. My mom, my dad and my sister drove in to see me lift. I actually set an American record there and she saw it. We have it on videotape because my dad taped it, and you can just hear her screaming her head off in the background, she’s so happy and ecstatic that I made it. She was always so supportive of me, right from the get-go. She was never like, “What? You want to be a weightlifter?” My mom always jokes around that she has one daughter who was a ballerina and one who lifts weights, so she got the two extremes!

Q7: Do you have a mentor, other than your coaches?

CARISSA GORDON: My mentor is Joey Cheek, who was a long-track speed skating bronze medalist in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. He was out here trying out short-track for a few months and I met him. He’s a great person, so full of life and energy, so positive. He’s somebody I can call day or night. It’s nice because he understands the sport but he’s not super familiar with it. He’s just really good at giving me advice.

Q8: How do you deal with the pressure of a do-or-die meet like the World Championships will be?

CARISSA GORDON: I think preparing yourself before the meet is really important, not getting there and being like, “Okay, I have to pull it together.” A lot of imagery, relaxation stuff. I have a CD that was made by [USOC] Sports Psychology. One is a relaxation thing so I can get my whole body to be calm, and the next track is going through the competition. I will go through three snatches and three clean-and-jerks and I’ll see myself doing it ahead of time so when I get out there I don’t freak out. I’ve gotten a lot better than I was before – I would throw myself into little tiny panic attacks where I’d get so hyped up and even throw up before a competition because of my nerves.

Q9: Do you follow a special diet?

CARISSA GORDON: I’m on the “see food” diet. I see food, I eat it! I really don’t follow a special diet, I just make sure that I drink a lot of liquids.

Q10: What’s in your gym bag?

CARISSA GORDON: I don’t have a bag! I keep my stuff at the gym. I have a pile.

Okay…so what’s in your pile?

CARISSA GORDON: My weightlifting shoes, straps for when we lift, empty water bottles, rolls of tape, packets of some energy drinks, and my binder with my workouts in it. And that’s my pile!