DOHA, QATAR It's like strapping into your seat on the Drop of Doom.

You sit waiting in anticipation, anxious about the outcome but eager to get things started. Your stomach is in knots, your palms are sweaty and you close your eyes because you just can't stand to watch.

And I'm not even competing.

I'm just sitting in the arena at the competition site of the world weightlifting championships in Doha, Qatar, awaiting the next attempt of Yukon's Jeane Lassen in the women's 69 kilogram class. I want so badly for Lassen to do well, not only because she's from Whitehorse, but because after spending the day tagging along with her, I've gained a whole new appreciation of her sport - and the work she puts into it.

Sunday, November 13:

9:30 a.m. It's the day of competition and after weighing herself a few times overnight and first thing in the morning, Lassen downs a pure soy shake for breakfast. She last weighed in at exactly 69 kg and official weigh-in is at 3:30 p.m. While she has been told the competition scale is a couple hundred grams lighter, she can't take too much of a chance with what she eats. But she is pretty much on track you don't want to be too far below 69 when you take to the stage.

'When you look at the scale, you know what you have to do,' she explains. 'It's not really a guessing game. Some people have to lose three kilos on competition day. I don't really have to do anything too bad.'

Throughout the night before, she kept a Boost beverage beside her bed, taking occasional sips to stay hydrated. It's mostly water that the weightlifters who are trying to make their weight class have to cut back on the days before the competition.

'One litre of water is one kilo, so you can lose one kilo on competition day by cutting back a litre of water,' says Lassen. 'You can lose up to five per cent of your body weight through cutting back water, if you're careful about it. But you have to, after weigh-in, drink things that will replace your electrolytes.

'I have a Pedialyte and Gatorade.'

12 p.m. Lassen eats an energy bar for lunch, careful to point out the difference between an energy bar and a protein bar. An energy bar, she explains, can only be eaten on competition days because it's so high in sugar.

After lunch, the talk turns to weight classes. Thai sensation Pawina Thongsuk, who set five new world records in the women's 63 kg class earlier at the championships, competed in the 75 kg class in Athens. Lassen says changes like that are never done without considerable thought to how it will affect the lifter, both in health and performance. The Yukoner says she may consider moving down into the 63s before the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

'Basically, you need to decide, if you gain (weight) how much can you improve your total? Or if you lose it, how much will it decrease your total? If it decreases only a little, it would be worth it.'

You have to determine what a safe body fat percentage is for an athlete, she says, and then calculate whether or not you can actually lose more weight and be healthy.

'We're not bodybuilders, we're never going to have two per cent body fat.'

Lassen's body fat percentage currently sits at 14 per cent.

1:30 p.m. The clock is ticking. Lassen plans to leave the hotel and head to weigh-in in about an hour. She doesn't really know what to expect as far as her competition, but her goal is to reach the top six in her class. If she finishes sixth or higher, she is eligible for more funding from the Canadian Olympic Committee.

'But if I don't (make top six), it won't really be a heartbreaker,' she says. 'It's not about the money for me. If I do the best performance of my life and finish last, I'll still be happy.'

Lassen is coming off her best performance to date, at the Quebec championships at the end of October. She snatched 100 kg and clean and jerked 133, despite a back injury which she has been suffering from since her trip home to Whitehorse for the opening of the Canada Games Centre.

She'll be starting the snatch at 95 kilos and the clean and jerk at 122, which she calls her 'worst-case scenario'.

She blows out a sigh. 'It makes me sick just thinking about (the competition).'

Lassen isn't a superstitious person, but she does get nervous. She describes competition as doing the thing that scares you the most, also comparing it to an amusement park ride.

'Sometimes you think, 'Why do I do this to myself?' It can be hard on your self-esteem. But once you're done (your lifts)...it's like a really good feeling. You actually did it.'

You really have to quiet the doubt that creeps up inside you, she says, and always reassure yourself. It's easy to feel inferior when you're around so many tough athletes.

2:20 p.m. Canadian coach Pierre Bergeron joins Lassen in the hotel room and the three of us go down to the lobby to catch the shuttle to the venue. Lassen lies down in the lobby with her pillow, hoping to calm her nerves, but she is quickly told to get up. And after waiting 15 minutes, there is still no sign of the shuttle, so not wanting to take any chances, we catch a cab.

3:30 p.m. Lassen weighs in at 68.60 kg and promptly proceeds to a comfortable room in the building, where she devours a protein bar, an energy bar, a strip of fruit leather, a Boost, a juice box, some Pedialyte and water. She has two hours until her competition begins, but just one hour before warm-up.

4:30 p.m. In the warm-up room, Lassen is assigned to share a platform with a competitor from Ukraine, Natalya Davydova. The warm-up room at these championships definitely causes safety concerns, as there is no space at all between the seven platforms. People were also walking back and forth right on Lassen's platform as she was lifting.

If that was not distracting enough for the athlete, the Ukrainian team decided to make things more difficult. They apparently forgot how to share and insisted Lassen go lift with the two Russians, who were already sharing one platform.

Lassen, of course, didn't want to have three of them on one platform. Things escalated pretty fast and eventually, the Russians got involved they didn't want another person on their platform either.

'The Russians also had about five people in the back with them (as did Ukraine), so it was all of them against me and my coach. It got pretty aggressive back there. (The Ukrainians) even tried to stop us from using the weights at one point. Usually, I'm really calm and don't talk in the back, but I was really annoyed.

'We were the ones following the rules. They were just trying to bully us.'

You may be wondering where the officials were to stop the argument. That question is still up in the air. But as they say, the show must go on. Eventually, Davydova went with the Russians for a while, before coming back to the same platform as Lassen.

'It actually probably helped me,' she says now. 'It got my adrenaline up.'

5:30 p.m. On her first attempt in the snatch, Lassen successfully lifts 97 kilos, then follows that up with a second lift of 100 kg. She misses her third attempt of 102 kg and heads into the clean and jerk portion ranked seventh.

Oddly enough, Davydova would again play a role in Lassen's experiences in the back room, but not on purpose. Davydova dropped the bar on herself during her final attempt and went down with an injury, causing a delay. Lassen was supposed to have her first attempt in the clean and jerk immediately following Davydova.

'We have it down to a science how we do our lifts in the back (during warm-up),' she explained. 'She was lying on the platform for quite a few minutes, so I had to do an extra lift in warm-up and I felt more tired than I normally would. Normally, I do seven attempts (in the back), but I had to do eight. We don't plan on doing more for a reason.'

When she finally hit the stage, Lassen missed her first lift of 126 kg, but made her second attempt of the same weight. Knowing at that point she had sixth place locked up her goal - she went for 132 kg on her final attempt, hoping to move up to fifth.

'I tried 132, but it crushed me,' she states. 'But given the circumstances, I'm lucky to have done what I did, with all the factors. This was the best international performance ever for me. You don't really expect to come here and do personal bests, just because of the conditions and the travel.'

Lassen was also up against some stiff competition from Russia and China, two countries which have been garnering numerous medals in both men's and women's action this week.

While she didn't come to Doha expecting to leave with a medal around her neck, Lassen will be the one everyone is gunning for at her next major competition, the Commonwealth Games in March, which will be held in Melbourne, Australia.

'All the people from Australia have said I'm the one they expect to win,' she admits. 'That isn't exactly the best position to be in. I'm going to be doing a lot of mental training for that competition over the next few months.'

Then there's the matter of getting her back fixed when she returns home at the end of this week, before deciding whether or not she will compete in another event in December, in order to secure her number one spot on the Canadian team.

It's all in a day's work.