Lou Rosini
Achievements
Adaptive Sports Hall of FameLou Rosini was a founding member of a loosely formed weightlifting team that introduced the sport to competition at the National Wheelchair Games in the early 1960s. In those formative years, there were three separate divisions: Lightweight, Middleweight, and Heavyweight. The athletes consisted of lifters with amputation, polio, and spinal cord-injured paraplegia. The lifts were made by the competitor while lying supine on a mat placed under the weighted bar.
Lou, a Korean War veteran and combat casualty, lifted in the heavyweight division and once held the national record with a lift of 403 pounds. As the sport became even more popular, the bench press lifting method was adopted as a result of Lou’s efforts and advocacy.
Lou led Team USA in international competition, including the 1968 Paralympics in Tel Aviv, Israel, and the 1969 Pan American Games in Argentina. After his retirement from competition, Lou was an instrumental figure in forming the weightlifters’ division of the National Wheelchair Officials Association. He helped write the Officials Rule Book and became the head official in all of the Regional Sanctioned Games and the National Wheelchair Games.
Lou coached and mentored many young lifters who went on to compete and set records nationally and internationally on Team USA teams.