Smith took up weightlifting aged 12, when she was at a gym training as a gymnast and was invited to try lifting; she subsequently represented her borough at the London Youth Games. A few months after her victory at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, her funding was withdrawn as she was deemed to be insufficiently committed to the sport, but was restored a couple of month later. By 2018, a shoulder injury, the end of centralised funding for weightlifting in the UK, and the loss of her sponsorship, led to Smith moving back in with her parents and taking a job as a barista. Smith coaches at a gym in East London.
In 2005, aged 12, Smith was training at a local gym as a gymnast.[9]Andrew Callard, who was forming a team for the London Youth Games, was in the building and was seeking female competitors for weightlifting at the competition.[9][10] Smith and some of the other gymnasts tried squats, and, according to Callard, her potential as a weightlifter was immediately obvious.[9] She took up weightlifting and represented her borough, Greenwich, at the London Youth Games.[10][11]
Career
Early career
Smith won the South East County Championships, her first major competition.[6] She was selected for the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games where she was the youngest member of the English team, and won the gold medal in the 53 kg category.[6][12] During 2008, she set national records 98 times across junior and senior classes,[6][13] ending the year holding all junior and senior records for the 53 kg weight category, with the exception of the clean and jerk record.[14] In the 58 kg category, she held every record that she could as someone aged under 18. The British Olympic Association named her their Athlete of the Year for Weightlifting.[14][15][16] At the age of 14 she was the second-ranked UK female weightlifter, behind only two-time Commonwealth champion Michaela Breeze.[9]
Smith (centre) at the 2008 Commonwealth Youth Games, where she finished first, ahead of Laxmi N and Akther Fayema[17]Smith (right) at the medal presentation ceremony at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she won the bronze medal. Ranu Bala Chanu Yumnam won the gold medal, and Seen Lee took the silver.[18]
Aged 15, Smith finished sixth at the 2009 European Junior Championships (for competitors up to 20 years old), a result that John Goodbody of The Sunday Times wrote "provided further evidence of her immense potential".[19] In October 2010 she won a bronze medal in the women's 58 kg division at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, her first senior international competition,[20] to become the first Englishwoman to win a Commonwealth Games weightlifting medal.[21] She was shortlisted for the 2010 BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award.[22] In December 2010, British Weight Lifting paused her £550-a-year funding,[22] arguing that she was overweight and not adequately committed to her training; her appeal against the decision was rejected.[23] Her funding was reinstated in February 2011 after what British Weight Lifting described as "positive changes".[24]
2012 Olympics and following years
In May 2012 Smith was chosen to represent Great Britain at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.[25] She competed in the Women's 58 kg division and took the British record with a clean and jerk lift of 121 kg.[25] With a snatch of 90 kg she was placed 12th in her weight class with a total of 211 kg.[25]
After winning bronze at the 2014 European Weightlifting Championships in April, lifting 204 kg, she won the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in July, lifting a total of 210 kg.[26][27] She travelled for the 2014 World Weightlifting Championships, but contracted a virus and had to withdraw before lifting.[27] Following the 2014 Commonwealth Games, Smith has said, she gained about 10 kg in weight, and having sometimes struggled to keep under 60 kg, she decided on a target weight of 63–64 kg.[27] Competing at a major event in the 63 kg category for the first time, Smith finished ninth at the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships.[27]
She took a bronze at the 2016 European Weightlifting Championships.[28] By August 2016, Smith held four British clean and jerk records spread across three weight classes.[29][30] She missed being selected for the 2016 Olympics following a shoulder injury that she incurred at 2015 British Championships.[31][32]
Since 2018
Around 2018, Smith relocated to the Midlands and, having paused her education while training for the 2012 Olympics, joined Loughborough College to study for A-levels in biology, psychology and environmental science.[26] In 2018, Ben Bloom wrote in The Daily Telegraph that since 2014 Smith had become "a sporting nobody; a beacon of talent that faded away into a foggy memory of seemingly unfulfilled promise".[26] He described how her shoulder injury, the end of centralised funding for weightlifting in the UK, the loss of Smith's sponsors, led to Smith moving back in with her parents and taking a job as a barista.[26] Smith described this time by saying, "It all became too much. I fell into a dark place and my mental health plummeted."[33]
At the 2018 Commonwealth Games, Smith took the silver medal in the women's 63 kg category.[26] Going into the competition with a back injury, she was permitted to have an Epidural administration to reduce the pain.[26] After a close contest with Mona Pretorius for second place, Smith prevailed, equalling Pretorius's lift of 115 kg in the clean and jerk after exceeding her lift in the snatch.[26] Bloom commented that "it is time to update those career highlights" on Smith's Wikipedia article.[26]
As UK Sport had decided to cut funding for weightlifting in 2016, Smith launched a crowdfunding appeal in July 2018, seeking to raise £10,000 to help her qualify for the 2020 Olympics.[34] She reached her target, and was selected.[33] She finished in sixth place at the 2021 European Weightlifting Championships (64 kg) in April 2021,[35] and eighth in the Women's 59 kg category at the Olympics in July of that year,[36] two places higher than she had finished in 2012.[37]
She was coached by Andy Callard.[6] Callard nicknamed her "Pablo", after the Olympic gold medal winner Pablo Lara, who had a reputation for being lazy.[41] He also coached her sister Yana Smith for weightlifting at the London Youth Games.[42] In a 2013 piece for The Times, Smith wrote that she liked to eat pizza before the start of competitions, wore make-up during events to help her feel good, and would order more pizza immediately after competing.[43] Smith, Giles Greenwood and Fraer Morrow founded the East London Weightlifting Club, where Smith coaches.[44]
Media appearances
Smith was a guest on the BBC One quiz show Question of Sport in 2012, 2014, and 2023.[45][46] She featured in British Olympic Dreams on BBC One in 2012 and alongside fellow weightlifters Hannah Powell and Helen Jewell in Girl Power: Going for Gold on BBC Three the same year.[47][48] Later in 2012, she spoke on BBC radio and television about dealing with critical comments regarding her not conforming to a typical physique.[49][50] She has been a guest on Ace and Vis (BBC Radio 1Xtra, 2012), Phil Williams (BBC Radio 5 Live, 2015), The Danny Baker Show (BBC Radio 5 Live, 2015), and Jessica Fostekew: Sturdy Girl Club (BBC Radio 4, 2023).[46]
Smith was a participant in the Channel 4 programme Time Crashers (2015), in which celebrities were placed in environments recreating specific historical times.[51] In the first episode, which was in an Elizabethan era setting, Smith cried as Kirstie Alley and Fern Britton were peeling the skin from a boar's skull.[51]
^ abcdShephard, Sarah (7 April 2016). "Hipster Lifter". Sport. No. 445. pp. 30–32. Archived from the original on 26 February 2023. Retrieved 26 April 2024 – via Issuu.
,_Seen_Lee_of_Australia_(Silver)_and_Zoe_Smith_of_England_(Bronze),_during_the_medal_presentation_ceremony.jpg)
