Zoe Smith wins a Silver Medal at the Commonwealth Games 2018
Zoe Smith overcomes injury and exams to win weightlifting silver at the Commonwealth Games but by Zoe Smith's own admission on Saturday it felt more satisfying than any gold she has ever won. To understand why the 2014 Commonwealth Games champion was quite so chirpy with an apparent downgrade, it is necessary to recall how much she has suffered in the past two years.
In order, she endured tearing just about every meaningful strand in her shoulder in 2016, which subsequently ruled her out of the Rio Olympics, and from there she saw all funding in Britain's weightlifting programme scrapped. Almost overnight she went from being a full-time athlete to working in a coffee shop to make ends meet.
Even as she celebrated this silver medal, she declared herself 'broke' and explained how she has been working in a bubble tea outlet in Loughborough, while studying to take her A levels next month at the age of 23.
So it is has been a brutally hard road, made tougher by a back problem that required an epidural injection to compete here. To overcome all that and emerge with a silver medal in the 63kg class behind Canada's Maude Charron is quite something.
Zoe won bronze in 2010 before taking gold in 2014.
“It is more satisfying (than the other medals) actually. Back in Glasgow in 2014 things were going really well. Life was good. It's been a little bit tougher for these Games so I'm really proud of this.”
Zoe Smith
She was also candid about the severity of her back injury:
“I could not lift the empty bar at the beginning of the week. I had to take myself off to have a good cry in the toilets a few times.
I've really had to pull myself together and say, 'Come on, this comes around every four years, you do not get another go at this'. I've had an epidural and multiple trips to the doctors.
'Even on the bus here I was thinking, 'I'm going to go and say hello to everyone but I probably won't be putting any weight on the bar'. So I'm actually shocked to get silver. I don't believe it.” Zoe Smith
