Before Emily Campbell walked on stage for her final lift in the Tokyo 2020 Games, she breathed out hard, shouted a battle cry and strode purposefully forward. She walked to the barbell, fixed her stance, eyes straight ahead.
Seconds later she made history, lifting a British and Commonwealth clean and jerk record of 161kg to take silver and become the first female British weightlifter to win an Olympic medal. She sank to her hands and knees with a scream of release, tears streaming down her face.
It was one of the most powerful moments of the Games and an expectation-smashing achievement for a young woman who had reached the pinnacle of her sport with only five years of experience and no official funding.
The 30-year-old acknowledges the landscape has transformed dramatically since the delayed Tokyo Games, which took place in empty stadiums and auditoriums in the wake of the Covid pandemic. When she walks out on 11 August, the final day of the Games, to compete in the +81kg super heavyweight category, she will do so as one of the favourites.
“Nobody really knew who I was in the lead up to Tokyo,” she says. “So there’s a lot more pressure going into these Games, but I like pressure. I’m just really looking forward to getting out there and putting on a show.”
Campbell’s form after Tokyo was superb. Helped with post-Olympics funding by UK Sport, her European titles in 2021 and 2022 were accompanied with a bronze in the 2021 World Championships and a silver in 2022. In 2022, she broke the Commonwealth Games women’s weightlifting record to take gold in her +87kg division.
But in 2023 she was struck by injury, with knee surgery and back problems forcing her to drop out of the world title race (she still won the European title “by the skin of my teeth”). Asked about the year, a shadow passes over her face. “It’s very hard because you come off such a high [of] being at your absolute peak and performing incredibly and then you’re constantly in rehab, trying to get back to the athlete you were. It is very difficult mentally. It’s very difficult physically.”
A beat later her positivity is back. “We came into 2024 and still had a few issues, but we managed to iron them out. I am in really, really good shape now and everything’s going in the right direction.”
She goes further, arguing that adversity has strengthened the athlete for Paris 2024. In February, she became one of the few athletes to have won four straight European titles, with gold in Sofia.
“You think if I can go through all of that, then anything that’s hit at me, I can handle it,” she says. “That’s the attitude I’m taking into Paris. Whatever is thrown at me. I’m ready for it, because we’re in the trenches last year and we’ve come out the other side.”
Campbell is the only super heavyweight female athlete from Europe to qualify. Among her competitors will be the 24-year-old Chinese sensation Li Wenwen, who won gold in Tokyo, with Olympic record-breaking lifts of 140kg in the snatch and 180kg in the clean and jerk.
“The Chinese have had a wealth of success within weightlifting – they’re fantastic at it,” says Campbell. “But we are closing the gap now and I just know that I’m going to be in the best shape that I can possibly be on the day, I’m going to put in the best performance that I can and whatever that rewards me with, I will be more than happy.”
When the moment comes, she may not even know what weight she is attempting to lift as she leaves the decision up to her team who are frantically working out the maths behind the scenes. “I know that my coaches will never put something on the bar that they don’t think I’m capable of,” she says.
“I didn’t know that I’d got a silver medal in Tokyo. That was just a bonus when I got off stage and they told me, so that was pretty cool.”
Asked to describe the few seconds before a lift, she pauses. “There’s no feeling, there’s no thought. You can’t really hear anything. I’ve got to be one with the bar, and it’s just time to execute.”
After a tough qualifying process in the lead up to the Games, Campbell emerged as GB Weightlifting’s sole representative. The number of weight classifications was cut from seven to five, which meant some teammates were competing in unfamiliar weight classes for fewer spots. But she insists the future is bright.
“We need that time to be able to develop our sport,” she says. “I have no doubt in my mind that soon we will be representing more. This time I’m just going to have to handle things on my own, and I’m happy to do that.”
She certainly has the shoulders, quads and glutes to carry that responsibility. Asked about her relationship with her formidably strong body, she is thoughtful, aware of the powerful message it carries. She has become a recognisable figure in the body positivity movement, with brands including Aldi, NatWest and the mattress brand Dreams clamouring to sign her up.
She points to the scars at the base of her neck, the result of thousands of barbells resting there before being launched into the sky. “That’s become part of who I am,” she says. “I’m in a very blessed position to be able to do something so incredible. And I have to thank my body for that.”
As someone whose body has changed dramatically – nine years ago, she weighed around 95kg, now she sits between 128kg and 131kg – she takes the long view and notes the multiple health benefits now associated with weightlifting. “Especially as women, our body is always going to be a journey, we’re never going to look the same at any point in our life,” she says. “It’s about learning to embrace and love all the different stages of that, and looking for the beauty in all of them.”
Campbell has no firm plans for a post-weightlifting career, although she quite fancies trying her hand at commentary or presenting. Her long-term goal is to open a youth and development gym in Nottingham, to give back to a community that supported her when getting to her first Olympics, from the market traders who gave her free fruit and veg to the small businesses that funded her travel to international competitions.
For now, her sole focus is on Paris. If she has pre-Games nerves she’s hiding them well. “It’s going to be really special this time,” she says with a smile. “All my family and friends will be out there to watch me and hopefully share another history‑making moment with me, but in person this time.”
