Smith 'is Britain's big medal hope'

Team GB weightlifting head coach Tamas Feher has reiterated the performance targets for his five lifters with just days to go until the start of the Olympic Games in London.

UK Sport, the body which invests funds including National Lottery money into Olympic sports, has not projected any weightlifting medals over the coming weeks.

Eighteen-year-old Zoe Smith is British weightlifting's golden girl and the biggest hope for success at ExCeL when she competes in the women's 58kg weight category next Monday.

Talented hope it certainly is, although chances of a first British medal since the Games of 1984 should not be built on expectation, with the teenager admitting herself that 2016, and possibly even 2020, will see her undoubted ability ripen.

Smith is competing at her first Olympics, as are fellow GB lifters Natasha Perdue, 36, Gareth Evans, 26, Peter Kirkbride, 24, and Jack Oliver, 21.

But Feher, a former Hungarian lifter with coaching experience at the the previous three Games, is demanding positive performances from each of his quintet and wants to see personal bests recorded when they take to the platform.

"Zoe's target is the highest one, being around the top six, top eight," Feher told Press Association Sport.

"Natasha's target is a little bit lower but I still want her to be around the top 10, top 12 at least. Going to the A group, the first 10 athletes (in each weight category) usually are in the A group, sometimes some of the B group can catch some positions from the A group athletes but I want Tash to be around that.

"The three boys should be around the top 15, going into the B group and being in the top 15 athletes.

"And most important is I want all of them to make some PB's on the stage."