Zoe Smith is a 23-year-old studying for her A-levels while working part-time at a bubble tea shop in Loughborough – as of Saturday she also has the complete set of Commonwealth Games medals.

The bubbly weightlifter is one of a kind and in Gold Coast she overcame both a crippling back injury and the loss of funding to take silver in emotional fashion in the women’s 63kg.

While she might have won gold in Glasgow four years ago, this silver meant just as much after injury denied her a place at the Olympics in Rio and she has spent the last two years working alongside her training, first as a barista in London and now in a bubble tea shop in Loughborough.

She has also returned to her studies, and will be taking her A-levels next month in biology, psychology and environmental science and that has allowed her to gain perspective on her situation.

She said: “Back in Glasgow things were going really well. My prep was great, life was good. It's been a little bit tougher for these Games. Obviously we lost our funding back in 2016. I've had to make a few changes in my life.

“I've moved up to Loughborough now where I'm back to studying, and training as often, as close to full-time as I can. Working as well to support myself. It's been a little bit different. I'm really quite proud of this. It just shows I can do it when I need to. I'm made of tough stuff I guess.”

Smith is not lying when she says she is made of tough stuff. She needed an epidural simply to compete and even on the day of the competition she did not expect to be able to lift anything more than the 15kg bar.

She managed that and much more, lifting 92kg in the snatch before matching South African Mona Pretorius’ 115kg in the clean and jerk to clinch the silver behind Canada’s Maude Charron.

She added: “My back's been so bad. I just had a flare-up just before I left the UK. It was awful; the flight here was horrendous. I literally had to get up every couple of hours to move around. I could not lift the empty bar at the beginning of the week.

“I’ve had an epidural while I was in the prep camp and then there have been multiple trips to the doctors, multiple painkillers, anti-inflammatories, but even after all that, it was still awful.

“Even on the bus here 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. I don’t believe it.”

For Smith the overwhelming emotion was one of relief, but having now added silver to her Glasgow gold and bronze in Delhi, she has big plans for the future – but the first priority is hitting the books.

She added: “I’ve been trying to revise for these exams. It’s strange. I probably should have been doing this when I was in Delhi. I’m trying to juggle a lot of things at the moment. I moved to Leeds when I was 17 to train for the London Olympics, that was a centralized programme that was very full-on.

“So I did that and delayed doing my A-levels. I always said I would come back to it but put it off quite a few times and I’m 23 now. I thought to myself, how much older can I reasonably get and do my A-levels without it being too weird and I feel like this is probably about it. I’m studying with actual children. They are nice children!”

At 23, Smith is still young in weightlifting terms and has already set her sights on Tokyo and a fourth Commonwealth Games on home soil in Birmingham in 2022.

She concluded: “You can do this for a fairly long time, injury permitting. So as long as I keep myself fit, I’m looking forward to Birmingham. This is what I’ve always done and it’s what I love doing.”

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