Emily Campbell makes history with fifth European crown

No female weightlifter had ever won five consecutive European titles until Emily Campbell came along.

The two-time Olympic medallist clinched her fifth continental crown with a dominant total of 281kg in the +87kg category in Chisinau, Moldova.

With a full house of lifts on the day, it was an historic moment for Campbell who became the first female weightlifter in any weight category to make it five in a row.

It's an achievement that anybody would be happy with, but one more notable for Campbell who missed out on a podium at the 2024 Worlds following a quad injury and had spent the winter back in rehab ahead of her return to the lifting platform.

"I'm definitely, very happy," she said. "You can't really grumble when you have a six from six performance and it's pretty comfortable.

"After Paris I actually got myself in really good shape for the World Championships in December, but unfortunately, sustained an injury in Bahrain on the platform.

"But the rehab was strong this time and had a really good training block in the lead-up to Europeans.

"There's always a pressure when you go into a class and everybody's expecting you to win. I always think that sometimes is harder than actually competing but I felt really good."

Pressure itself must fear Campbell however, as she brushed off any expectations and clinched gold once more in an emphatic performance, even if the prospect of history was somewhere in the back of her mind.

"It was actually at a training camp in Germany, and somebody mentioned whether anyone had won it five times before," she added.

"That's when someone did a little bit of research and we worked out that there's a couple of athletes that have done maybe five times just in general, but nobody had had a straight run of five consecutive wins.

"So we thought that was pretty cool."

With Olympic silver and bronze, five European titles, and two world medals, Campbell is undoubtedly still at the top of her game.

But there is still more to achieve according to the weightlifter herself, with a 288 kg personal best at Paris 2024 continuing to fuel her ambitions of lifting heavier and push beyond her limits.

"The main thing is I still love competing," she said. "I still love what the sport can obviously do for other people, and I'm passionate about it, and I think that that's what keeps me motivated.

"I also think that Paris, for me was a big eye opener in the fact that, I got a personal best and attempted a weight that, nobody even thought that I could get off the floor, and achieve so that left me with the 'what could be'.

"So I definitely think I can lift bigger weights going forward and that's what keeps me motivated to keep going back."

Away from the platform, Campbell is also chasing her ambitions.

At Tokyo 2020, she was one of four British female weightlifters selected for the Games, making history as she became Britain’s first female Olympic medallist in the discipline.

But three years later at Paris 2024, she flew the flag solo as Britain's sole weightlifting competitor.

It was a moment that has spurred her on in her goals of getting more people into weightlifting, including an ambition to open a lifting gym in her home city of Nottingham.

"I'm really passionate about trying to keep bringing people through," she said.

"I was probably the first one to bring it to the mainstream and I don't want us to go back into the shadows. I want someone to be able to take over from me, or, you know, multiple people, to be able to take over me.

"I know I'm the first and the only one to have Olympic medals for Britain but I don't want to be the last."

Having pushed weightlifting, and specifically female weightlifting, into the spotlight over the past few years, Campbell has become a beacon of inspiration.

Her ambitions to get more people into the sport go hand-in-hand with her ambitions to end harmful misconceptions about body image and female strength.

With a woman at the forefront of one of the biggest strength-based sports in Britain, Campbell continues to show that strong can be beautiful and is thrilled to hear stories of young girls and women wanting to build their own muscle through sport.

"There's been so many misconceptions of this for so long: People thinking that it's not attractive to be strong," she said.

"I think more and more women are actually realizing that when they see women on the internet that are strong and have muscles, they realize how attractive they actually are.

"We're moving in the direction of more young people wanting to do that, and I have conversations with young girls now who want to be strong and want to lift weights and want to have muscles and that's a really positive thing.

"It's all down to mental health and self esteem. The more confident you are in your body, and the more empowered you feel, the better you are going to be mentally so I think it's a win win, really."

Sportsbeat 2025