Zoe Smith - My greatest sporting moment

An interview series looking back at favourite memories from sports stars around the world

“It’s something that I’d always set out to do from the age of 12 when I started lifting.”

Knowing what you want to achieve before reaching your teens is not commonplace among young people.

For Team GB weightlifter Zoe Smith, however, life has seemingly played out in fast forward as six years on from picking up weights for the first time, she was competing at the London 2012 Olympic Games aged just 18.

Two years on and she was able to realise her dream of winning a Commonwealth Games gold medal at the 2014 Glasgow Games.

With Tokyo 2020 postponed until next year, we caught up with Zoe to look back on her memories of that special day in Scotland.

“It seems like a bit of a blur looking back all those years ago and even at the time it was completely crazy,” she commented.

“I had hopes of winning the gold as four years earlier I’d won a bronze medal and so I was looking to upgrade that.

“I remember going into it a little nervous of course, but I was also fired up and training had been going quite well up until that point, so I knew I was in good form.

“My biggest rival was one of my idols growing up, Michaela Breeze, so that added to the pressure that I felt on the day.”

Breeze and Smith were at opposite ends of their careers in 2014, with Breeze coming out of retirement to win a sixth Commonwealth Games medal in Glasgow aged 35.

It was an amicable rivalry, but one that Smith said the media focused on in their coverage of weightlifting at the Games.

“Michaela and I get on quite well and even during the competition she was still very supportive.

“It’s one of the things that I like about the weightlifting community, you want to do well because you’ve performed well, not because your competitors haven’t.

“Our sport doesn’t tend to get a lot of media interest, but I think what we did get was positive and it helped to drum up interest around that time.

“I felt the media always treated Michaela and I completely fairly and helped hype the event up which added more excitement.”

Being a minority sport in the UK, we asked Smith if she felt a frustration that media coverage often tends to be restricted to Olympic and Commonwealth Games.

“There are so many sports that it’s hard to cover a lot of them, although the coverage that we get is a lot better than it used to be in this country.

“There’s a lot more of a buzz around the major competitions because of their nature and it’s where those sports get their 15 minutes of fame really.

“The sport in the UK is still small but it’s definitely growing and since 2012 we’ve seen a huge explosion in participation, whether that’s due to London 2012 or CrossFit.”

Smith also pointed to the fact that a lot of athletes have taken to their own social media platforms to help publicise the sport.

With lifting videos taking just a few seconds to view, it’s a great fit for the constant scrolling nature of platforms like Instagram and Twitter.

Smith has always been something of a performer and having transferred to weightlifting from a background in gymnastics, she celebrated her triumph in Glasgow with a celebratory backflip for the cameras.

But was it something she had planned in advance?

“It’s a bit of a party trick that I can do anyway. I made a joke with some friends before and said I’d do it if I won, and in the heat of the moment I thought ‘sod it’, but could you imagine the shame if I completely mistimed it?

“But you don’t think about those things at the time and I was just way too excited. Retrospectively it probably wasn’t my smartest idea, but I thought it looked good!”

As well as continuing her preparation for the postponed Tokyo Olympics, Smith is also an ambassador of DFY Sports, a Foundation set up by her management company International Sports Consulting (ISC).

DFY [pronounced defy] recently launched a fundraising campaign with the aim of raising an initial £10,000 and it’s something that Smith feels passionately about supporting.

“DFY is all about engaging with kids who may have had disadvantaged upbringings and providing them with an opportunity to find their path.

“I grew up in Abbey Wood which is certainly not one of the wealthiest areas and sport was a welcome distraction that helped to shape me as a person.

“As an ambassador I’m going to be raising awareness of DFY’s work, but I’m also really keen to get involved with the coaching sessions that the charity is putting on.

One of the prizes being auctioned off as part of the fundraising launch is a one-on-one weightlifting session with Smith in London, as well as a plethora of other opportunities and signed merchandise from the likes of rugby stars Joe Cokanasiga, Freddie Burns, and Jacob Umaga.

Click here to find out more about DFY or to donate to an incredibly worthy cause: https://natwestbackherbusiness.co.uk/dfy/