Meet Mary Theisen-Lappen: the track and field athlete turned weightlifter sharing a message of body positivity
Mary Theisen-Lappen always dreamed of competing in the Olympics, but not necessarily as a world-class weightlifter. Her road to the Games has been circuitous—it didn’t start in weightlifting but in track and field.
The Eau Claire, Wisconsin native excelled in throwing throughout her college years at Winona State University (Minn) and Indiana State University. Following her senior season, she earned All-America honors in shot put and finished ninth in the event at the 2014 U.S. championships.
In an interview with Olympics.com, Theisen-Lappen said, “My plan after the championships was to take the summer off and then reset in the fall. I took a much-needed break that summer and realized that I probably wasn’t talented enough to go to the Olympics.”
While this could have been where her Olympic dreams ended, instead, it set the stage for a new path. Theisen-Lappen channeled her passion into coaching track and field at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, a Division III program. She describes this as a welcome reset after spending over a decade in training.
But it also ignited a competitive hunger in her. In 2018, at age 27, she gave weightlifting a try. “I started it kind of on a whim. I figured I’ll just try it and see what happens,” she said, adding, “It ended up working out really well.”
Theisen-Lappen’s rapid rise to becoming an elite weightlifter
In 2022, Theisen-Lappen stunned the weightlifting world at the 2022 USA Weightlifting North American Open when she set a new clean & jerk American record of 163kg in the Women’s +87kg category, resulting in a 278kg total with her 115kg snatch.
Her result not only broke the previous record set by two-time Olympic medalist Sarah Robles but it also moved Theisen-Lappen out front among the U.S. women in the +87kg weight class.
Theisen-Lappen says of her American record, **“**The track athlete in me loved the adrenaline and the crowds. It’ll probably go down as one of my favorite memories in the sport.”
The following year, in her world weightlifting championships debut at the 2023 IWF Grand Prix II in Doha, Qatar, which acted as an Olympic qualifier, Theisen-Lappen won the silver medal for total weight in the +87kg category and claimed a silver medal with a clean & jerk of 163kg. With this performance, she had now positioned herself as the most dominant U.S. woman in her category.
Team USA can only send one athlete per weight class to the Olympics, with just six quota spots for three women and three men. Theisen-Lappen held strong through the remaining Olympic qualifiers. It was official at the concluding qualifier in Thailand: Theisen-Lappen was among the three women who earned quota spots for Paris 2024.
An inspirational rocket to the top in just a five-year span.
National Olympic Committees (NOCs) have exclusive authority over the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, so each athlete's participation in the Paris Games will depend on the selection of their NOC to represent their delegation in Paris 2024.
Theisen-Lappen’s message of body positivity
When asked by Olympics.com whether she had other figures she looked up to in sports as a lifelong athlete, Theisen-Lappen shared that even during her track and field days she admired Robles.
“I always looked up to Sarah, even when I didn’t know anything about weightlifting,” she said. It wasn’t just Robles athleticism that she connected with, “I think all of us throwers and weightlifters, especially us bigger women, we stick together regardless of the sport.”
Theisen-Lappen knows the importance of representation in sports. *“*When I grew up, I had no one to look up to. I spent my whole childhood and young adulthood trying to be small,” she explained.
One of her Olympic hopes is to inspire younger kids as someone they can look up to. “I hope that the algorithm puts me where girls and boys can see me and say, ‘Hey, she’s super strong and confident,’ when they see a confident, bigger woman, so they don’t have a bad feeling in their hearts.”
There are a lot of different ways that healthy and strong can look, offers Theisen-Lappen, “Right now, this is my body for what I need it to do. It’s provided me with some pretty great talents, and it’s done some really awesome things."
In her final thought, she said, "I’m hoping I can be a role model to people who don’t have one. I’m hoping that’s what I can do… and obviously make big weights, but hopefully, it goes farther and deeper than that.”