The brave weightlifters strained and buckled, wobbled and staggered, and wowed the crowd by giving it their all, writes MIRIAM LORDin London
JIMMY MAGEE’S braces made us late for the women’s weightlifting.
They set off the security scanner, which then promptly broke down. There was a bit of a drama.
We couldn’t leave Jimmy at the mercy of the military, with 11 Summer Olympics under his belt only to be brought down by his braces. Not when he’s getting a special award on Thursday from the International Association of Sports Journalists to mark all his years of service to the Games.
So we waited until the veteran broadcaster’s red braces, with their buckles and clips, were cleared for entry into the ExCel Centre and the boxing.
“He’s a very funny man,” said the security lady.
Easy knowing she’s never had to listen to Saturday/Sunday sport for the past 75 years.
The ExCel is the place to be if you harbour violent thoughts towards someone in your life. Any amount of handy tips to be picked up.
You can learn how to knock that somebody senseless, kick their lights out, snatch and lift them over your head in one seamless movement before dumping them contemptuously to the floor, throw and then pin them to the ground or, as a last resort, run them through with a fencing foil.
It’s a great place for the kiddies too.
And there was great local interest yesterday in the women’s 58kg weightlifting – taut little women with cinched in waists and toned everything – one of whom claimed the gold medal on the way to lifting well over twice her weight in huge disks of metal.
Alas for the home crowd, it wasn’t to be Zoe Smith’s day. Zoe is an 18-year-old slip of a thing with doe eyes, a slight frame and a gorgeous smile. She smoothly hefted 121kg over her head in the clean and jerk (two movements) to break the British record. That’s just over 19 stone in old money.
After she bowed out in the first session of the day, the group interviewing her afterwards was made up entirely of simpering male British sports journalists.
In the lift back up to the media centre, the lads were well impressed.
“She’s a very good looking girl,” remarked one. “That’s us finished with the weightlifting now. Interest will go right down after this.”
If the local heroine – from just across the river in Greenwich – had her adoring crowd in a frenzy of misplaced optimism, the star of the morning was German lifter Christin Ulrich.
The stocky German strode on to the main stage emitting a series of motivational yelps and yowls. Then, with the spotlight on her, she addressed the bar.
“Yeeeuch,” she squealed.
“Yeah!” roared back the crowd.
She effortlessly flicked 88kg in the air, finishing with a big smile.
With each reappearance, bawling Christin’s motivational mewling grew in loudness and length. The crowd bellowed back, the majority swaddled in Union Jacks and team GB T-shirts, urging on Germany’s girl with the red bows in her blonde hair.
Then the squaddies marched in and took up some of the vacant seats – still a lot of them in the VIP sections.
The packed ticketed rows cheered and stomped their feet. Not for Her Majesty’s brave boys, fearlessly filling the embarrassing voids, but for screaming Christin and lovely Zoe and all the astonishingly strong, skilled and courageous women giving their all.
They strained and buckled, wobbled and staggered, falling backwards when the bar pitched forward, drunkenly stepping about before yielding to gravity. Sometimes, their heavily strapped knees just folded. But when it worked, when arms locked and feet steadied, the pain and strain was instantly forgotten.
The loaders sat to one side of the platform – a line of men and one woman, running up after each lift to check the weights and add or remove some.
During the interval, the woman took to the stage. To vacuum it, with a Henry hoover.
For all that, Zoe and the rest were the second string. In the afternoon, the serious contenders rocked up. Everyone knew the girl from China would win. And she did, smashing the Olympic record in the process.
But everyone was rooting for Sirakaew Pimsiri from Thailand, because she had the most colourful and enthusiastic supporters, many in traditional costume. One, wearing a jewel-encrusted pith helmet, had a drum with three cow bells, cymbals and a small gong strapped over his shoulder. Another wore an exquisite duck-egg blue silk jacket and a hat like a temple’s spire. He twirled around on the spot, fingers extended.
They celebrated when their woman won the silver medal.
The most striking character was a tall, elderly man with a very long, tapering, grey wispy beard and an expansively plumed hat. He wore a studded black jacket with gold sash and patterned silk pantaloons.
He smiled at us.
“That is Mr Toilae, the most famous comedian in Thailand,” a girl told us. “He follows his country everywhere.” So, is he funny? “Eh, he is retired now,” came the diplomatic reply.
As the crowd left, it was good to see how much they had enjoyed the show. Weightlifting isn’t usually a big draw.
But they came from all over to see it, to be part of the Olympics.
“We came from Preston in Lancashire to be here. It’s been brilliant. I wanted the gymnastics, but this what we got.
“Who would have thought weightlifting could be so good,” said a woman who travelled up on the train with her 11-year-old daughter and 75-year-old mother.
“It’s fantastic to be a part of it.”