SMITH Zoe

General
RETURN FROM INJURY
She won an unexpected silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, QLD, Australia, after coming back from a serious shoulder injury she suffered in 2016. "I had an epidural while I was in the prep camp. Since then there have been multiple trips to the doctors, multiple painkillers, anti-inflammatories, but even after all that, it was still awful. I could not lift the empty bar at the beginning of the week [of competition in Gold Coast]. Even on the bus here [to the competition venue in Gold Coast] I was thinking to myself I'm going to go and say hello to everyone and have a wave on the platform but I probably won't be putting any weight on the bar. So I'm actually shocked [to have won a medal]. I'm really quite proud of this medal. It just shows I can do it when I need to. I'm made of tough stuff, I guess." (theguardian.com, 07 Apr 2018; telegraph.co.uk, 07 Apr 2018)

FUNDING CUTS AND RETURN TO STUDIES
She has struggled for financial support throughout her career, and in 2013 she considered quitting the sport due to a combination of injury and GB Weightlifting losing its UK Sport funding. She coached other athletes and worked in a cafe to earn money in the periods when she did not receive funding, and in 2018 she returned to college in Loughborough to complete her A-Levels and was also working part-time as a waitress. "I know it's a first-world problem, but I'd never had to work before and getting up at 05:00 every day to make my way over to a coffee shop where I'd be serving for most of the day before trying to train was incredibly tough. People would recognise me when I was making them a coffee and they'd say, 'Aren't you Zoe Smith, the weightlifter?' and it reminded me where I'd been and where I now was. I just woke up one morning and decided, 'Actually I don't have to do this, I can make changes' and I had to do what was best for Zoe the athlete and choose happiness. It was a real conscious effort to make a change, break the cycle, find a way out and it's really paid off because I'm much happier now." (bbc.co.uk, 17 Sep 2019, 12 Jul 2017, 22 Feb 2011; independent.co.uk, 24 Aug 2018; telegraph.co.uk, 07 Apr 2018)

CATEGORY CHANGE
In 2019 she moved down to the 59kg category from 64kg to boost GB Weightlifting's prospects of qualifying two women for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, with Sarah Davies competing in the heavier division. Smith missed out on the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro with a shoulder injury. "After the lows of missing out on Rio, Tokyo is a proper comeback mission. I know I'm not quite there yet, but I've learnt so much from the last four years; I'm loving the challenge and I'm grafting for maybe the first time in my life." (bbc.co.uk, 17 Sep 2019)

In 2014 she became the first female weightlifter representing England to win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games when she was victorious in the 58kg category in Glasgow, Scotland. Four years earlier she had become England's first female Commonwealth Games medallist in weightlifting when she claimed bronze in the same event in Delhi, India. (SportsDeskOnline, 06 Sep 2019; weareengland.org, 28 Aug 2015; bbc.co.uk, 06 Oct 2010)