Her silver win with a lift of 161kg was the first ever medal for the UK in women’s weightlifting – a thrill made all the sweeter, she says, by Team GB camaraderie
- Micah Richards: ‘There was such a buzz around the Euros. I loved every minute’
- See the Observer’s faces of 2021 in full
Even by weightlifting standards, Emily Campbell’s silver medal-winning lift at the Tokyo Olympics was a striking piece of Olympian theatre. With her hair in two Team GB-themed blue and red buns, she completed the lift, dropped the 161kg weight, then fell to her knees, letting out a tearful scream.
“I don’t know where that came from,” says Campbell, 27, chatting to me over the phone. “When I fell to the floor it was genuinely because my legs were like jelly… It was massive emotion really: relief, pure excitement, joy, it was just a lot to think I’d managed to achieve everything I’d always dreamed of.”
