Sean Rigsby Hired as USA Weightlifting Sport Performance Manager

COLORADO SPRINGS – After three years as a national team coach with USA Weightlifting, Sean Rigsby has been hired into a full-time role as the Sport Performance Manager. This new role goes well beyond coaching, as Rigsby will contribute to the management and operation of USAW Sport Performance programming. This includes supporting administration of the National Team Program, aiding in the creation and execution of program policies and protocols, contributing to national team selection procedures, tracking and operationalizing athlete performance data, aiding in the creation of high-performance plans and success metrics, and more. Rigsby is a long-time weightlifting professional with deep roots in the sport and United States weightlifting community. Since 2022 he has been working with USAW as a national team coach, primarily working with the youth and junior teams.

“Since we hired Sean as a national coach, he has shown strong abilities in organization and leadership that have gone well beyond just coaching in the backroom. Those are the qualities that led me to understand what a great asset he would be to the Sport Performance Team and USA Weightlifting overall as a Sport Performance Manager,” said Senior Director of Sport Performance Mike Gattone. “Sean has a great background in weightlifting as an athlete, coach, administrator, and technical official–he's done everything in the sport. He understands the paradigm shift within USAW and USAW’s new standing in international weightlifting. He understands what we’re working toward as an organization and high-performance team in aiming to be one of the best teams in the world. I couldn’t be more excited to have him on our team in this new role.”

Rigsby has been integral in the recent success of USA weightlifting athletes at international competitions. Working alongside fellow national team coaches Jackie Black and Pyrros Dimas, Rigsby helped USA athletes earn 54 medals in the last four junior world championships and 11 medals in the last four youth world championships. Rigsby was a key voice in helping Coach Gattone and USAW develop the recently-launched National Team Program and has been aiding in the development of the 25 athletes who make up the developmental level of the NTP by leading direct engagement with many of these athletes and their personal coaches. Additionally, he and Coach Black created and executed the programming that the athletes followed at the first NTP developmental camp that ran weeks ago at the Olympic and Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. 

“I've given my life to weightlifting and it has been immeasurably generous in return,” Rigsby said. “Through our sport, I found my spouse, my livelihood, and the most rewarding friendships across a global community. I am thankful to Coach Gattone and USA Weightlifting for giving me the opportunity to serve these past years as a National Team Coach. I'm grateful that my work during this time has distinguished me as the right person to act as our Sport Performance Manager. The United States has the best athletes and coaches in the world. I intend to ensure they are provided with a peerless level of support during their preparation and on the platform. The expanded capacity of our department ensures our team's success in L.A. and develops our infrastructure for many Games to come.”

Rigsby’s background includes co-coaching Lenoir-Rhyne University to back-to-back collegiate national championships in 2021 and 2022, and the Jamaican Weightlifting Federation to their best performance at a Commonwealth Games in 2022. Over his time as a weightlifting coach, Rigsby has led numerous athletes to U.S. national teams, national medals, and to masters world championships. As an athlete, Rigsby won multiple national titles while representing Ireland and the United States, and has represented Ireland on the international stage. Rigsby’s coaching resumé also includes experience working with athletes from the NFL, MLB, and NCAA.

With Rigsby’s move to the Sport Performance Manager position, USAW will begin the search for a new national team coach in the near future. The timeline and details for this search will be shared when available.