A weightlifting arena resounds with shrieks. But none were as exultant as the cry from Emily Campbell at the realisation that she was going to become the first British woman to win an Olympic medal in the sport.
Campbell had been straining and grimacing underneath 161kg of metal until the sound of the buzzer notified her that she was going to be standing on an Olympic podium with a silver medal around her neck. Ripping off her belt, collapsing to the stage, letting rip with that scream of jubilation, Campbell reacted as you might expect from someone who did not take up weightlifting until 2016.
“I picked up a barbell five years ago for the first time and now I am an Olympic medallist,” she said. “It’s wild. It’s surreal. I mean, it’s going to probably take me a long time to get my head around it all.”
Campbell had been a hammer thrower and wanted to improve her strength so started heading more frequently to the heavy weights. She could not have imagined where the path would lead her, although it has not always been paved with silver.
Campbell is not National Lottery funded. She has previously worked helping children with special needs, and has had to do odd jobs around Nottingham while training to be an Olympian.
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“Every time I go out to the local market they give me free fruit and veg,” she said. “The cobblers sort out my boots for me, they raise money for me. They do all sorts of events. So I just want to say ‘thank you’ to Nottingham.”
She came to Tokyo with the hope of a medal after winning the European super-heavyweight title in Moscow in April, though gold was never on the cards. Li Wenwen, from China, was always the overwhelming favourite.
Campbell, 27, was fourth after the snatch round, with a best lift of 122kg at the second attempt. Li’s 140kg was her first Olympic record of the night.
All the focus on Laurel Hubbard, the first openly transgender female athlete to compete at the Olympics, had quickly dissipated when she was eliminated without registering a lift in her three attempts at the snatch. Controversy left the room, but there was still fierce competition.
On to the clean and jerk, which was when Campbell propelled herself into medal contention. After 150kg with her first attempt, she returned knowing that 156kg with her second would guarantee a medal. Job done, she let out her first jubilant shriek of the night.
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When she came out for the final time, she knew that 161kg would bring silver. She pulled it off, after a wobble of the legs, to register a total of 283kg. Sarah Robles, who was her training partner in the United States earlier this year, took bronze for a second time, on 282kg.
“The last lift wasn’t a perfect clean,” Campbell said. “It was a little bit in front and I knew I had to fight for it. So I just had to breathe, to say to myself, ‘you’ve done this 100 times, just jerk it’. I’m just lost for words.
“I have worked my way up in this sport. I was very strong, very powerful, but my technique was very minimal. And without technique in this game you have nothing. So I started from the bottom and worked up. It wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen overnight.”
Bronze and silver decided, Li returned to set more Olympic records. Her final total of 320kg was 15kg short of her own world record.
A major talking point of the night had been Hubbard’s involvement, though Campbell was not keen to join a complicated debate. “I’m not really a selfish person, but I think that at this moment I need to be selfish,” she said. “I just won an Olympic medal and I definitely need to make this all about me.” She is Britain’s first weightlifting medallist since 1984, when it was a men-only sport.
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She was far happier talking about her performance and the hair-dye in Team GB colours. “I did have some white bobbles on top and it just didn’t look quite right so I decided to ditch them at the last minute. But yeah, it’s a little tribute to Great Britain and I just thought it was a fun thing to see a bit of Olympic swagger.”
She is certainly entitled to that. Someone suggested that she could now lay claim to being the second strongest woman in the world. “Yeah, that’s kind of cool,” she said.
