Zoe Smith

Zoe Smith (born 26 April 1994) is an English weightlifter. 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, to become the first English woman to win a Commonwealth Games weightlifting medal. Smith competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and finished 12th in the Women's 58 kg division. After missing the 2016 Summer Olympics following an injury, she finished eighth in the 59 kg at the 2020 Summer Olympics. At the 2023 European Weightlifting Championships she won the gold in clean and jerk and the bronze in the 64 kg total category. She failed to qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics. 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 A few months after her victory at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, her funding was withdrawn as she was deemed to be insufficiently committed to the sport, but was restored a couple of months later.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.