By the time Emily Campbell stepped on to the platform for a final time on Thursday, the women\u2019s +86kg weightlifting final had all the fervour of a revivalist\u00a0meeting.<\/p>\n
Everyone was cheering. There were loud shouts and exhortations. People who didn\u2019t know a snatch from a clean and jerk two hours before had become instant converts. It was the Campbell Effect in action again. But the double Olympic medallist wasn\u2019t finished\u00a0there.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily is not satisfied with a gold medal,\u201d said the announcer. \u201cShe\u2019s not satisfied with a CWG [Commonwealth Games] record. She wants more!\u201d The clean and jerk bar had been set to 160kg. But the army volunteers whose job it is to add more weights had barely moved, when the announcer piped up again. \u201cStop the clock! 163kg on the bar please loaders. Emily wants a Commonwealth record!\u201d<\/p>\n
Then the 32-year-old with three lions on her England shirt, and six lions woven into her dyed-red hair, went out and got it. One striking display of force and timing got the bar on her shoulders. Another got it over the head. Then the SEC erupted in a sea of love and appreciation.<\/p>\n
Campbell responded by blowing kisses to her adoring fans. \u201cI couldn\u2019t have asked them to be any louder,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t really hear myself think.\u201d<\/p>\n
But how she deserved it after lifting 115kg in the snatch and 163kg in the clean and jerk for a combined score of 278kg. That, incredibly, was 25kg clear of her nearest rival. As people waved St George flags and punched the air it was hard to imagine how she could be any more popular, but then she told us she would be appearing on Celebrity MasterChef next month.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a really fun experience,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was really nice for me to do something without being Emily the weightlifter. Food is something I\u2019ve always been massively passionate about.<\/p>\n
\u201cMasterChef was definitely more nerve-racking than this, absolutely. MasterChef was very tough. It was a very tough competition, but I enjoyed it thoroughly. My signature dish is Caribbean and that\u2019s all I\u2019m going to give you because I want you to watch it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The only moment that gave us pause afterwards came when Campbell intimated she wasn\u2019t entirely sure whether she would go for a hat-trick of Olympic medals at the LA Games in 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you want me to be dead honest with you?\u201d she said. \u201cIt hurts everywhere. Everywhere. Your knees, your shoulders, your back, everywhere. We\u2019re lifting serious weight and it is hard and that\u2019s why you have to be really sensible.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019ve got some thinking to do. We\u2019re going to go back with the team. We\u2019re going to strategise. LA, we would like to go, but we\u2019ve got to look at the practicalities. If they work, you will see me at the end of the year starting qualification. But for now, we enjoy what just happened. We have some good food, maybe a few drinks, and then we move on from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
As she spoke, the 18-year-old Etta Mae Love of Canada, who won bronze, was talking about how Britain\u2019s finest lifter had been an inspiration when she first started.<\/p>\n
That made Campbell smile, even if it also made her feel a little strange. \u201cIt is lovely now that I\u2019m at a stage where I\u2019ve become so old that I\u2019m sharing the stage with people that were inspired by me,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s always very surreal when people go \u2013 you\u2019re a role model \u2013 because you never set out to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou just set out to do the thing that you love and you do it with grace. But if I can get someone to do something they\u2019re passionate about, then I\u2019ve done more than my job.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this, certainly, was another job impeccably done.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By the time Emily Campbell stepped on to the platform for a final time on Thursday, the women\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":567403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-567402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=567402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/567402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/567403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=567402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=567402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=567402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}