Kate Vibert

Katherine Elizabeth Vilbert (born on January 5th, 1999) is an American weightlifter, Olympian, World Champion, Pan American champion, and Junior World Champion. Before switching to functional fitness, which eventually led her to weightlifting, she was a competitive gymnast for 11 years. She competed in the 69 kg category until 2018 and in the 71 kg category as of 2018, when the IWF reorganized their weight classes. She was named the IWF Female Lifter of the Year for 2019 because of her outstanding achievements.

Vibert won a silver medal in the 69 kg division at the 2018 Junior World Weightlifting Championships. In 2019, she competed at the Pan American Weightlifting Championships in the 71 kg division and set Pan American records in the snatch and the total, and won gold medals in all three lifts. Later in 2019, she won the Junior World Weightlifting Championships in the 71 kg category with a total lift of 246 kg, where she lifted 34 kg more than the silver medalist. 

At the 2019 World Weightlifting Championships, she competed in the 71 kg division and set a junior world record with a 112 kg snatch. She completed a 136 kg clean and jerk and won gold medals in all lifts, which made her the youngest U.S. woman to win a World Championship and the second since Robin Goad in 1994. Her achievements, like the gold medals she won at the Pan American Weightlifting Championships, Junior World Weightlifting Championships, and World Weightlifting Championships, have earned her the 2019 IWF Lifter of the Year award. 

In 2021, she competed at the 2020 Olympics in the women’s 76 kg event and won a silver medal, which is the highest achievement for an American weightlifter since 2000. In 2023, her performances remained strong and she won a silver medal in the women’s 71 kg event at the Pan American Weightlifting Championships in Bariloche, Argentina, and finished 5th in the same category at the World Weightlifting Championships in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

She’s known for her disciplined training regimen and works with her coach, Spencer Arnold, who started coaching her in March 2021. Despite setbacks, like bombing out at the 2017 USAW Junior Nationals, she managed to bounce back.