ALTHA, Fla. (WMBB) — Altha weightlifting senior, Braeden Smith is looking for her third gold medal at the state level after breaking school history after winning back-to-back titles last season.
In districts, Smith dominated in the 129 weight class, taking first place with a total of 340 pounds, 85 pounds more than second place.
“It would mean a lot,” Smith said. “Just because winning another state championship would be really nice to do and I would be the first one to ever win three state championships back to back.”
Altha head weightlifting coach Robbie Smith who is also her father said this is something she’s been working towards.
“My daughters been lifting since she was sixth grade and she’s got a chance this year to go for a third state title, it’s going to be tough,” Smith said. “Every year has been tough, but she’s trained hard, couldn’t be more proud of her, and we’re going to give it our best shot.”
If you’ve seen Smith compete, you may know her signature face paint.
“I started doing the paint in my sophomore year and I would do it for every meet, but I waited this year to start until districts just kind of wanted to wait until the meets got more serious to start,” Smith said.
This year she is going to start small and add to it for each meet. By the time state competition rolls around she will have the full paint.
“My dad thought it’d be a good idea to do like one part for districts and the second part for regionals and then like the full thing for state,” Smith said. “So it’s kind of like the complete like finished my season.”
Next up is regionals in Suwanee and then the State Championship in Lakeland. Regionals are on February 4 and states will be February 18.
