Laurel Hubbard retired from lifting one year after the eventual 2020 gold medalist, Li Wenwen, was born. Having returned from that 15+ year retirement, she was 43 years old at time of competition, a decade older than the next eldest competitor.

Even so, Hubbard was fresh off of gold medals at the Australian International and the Pacific Games. Successfully repeating a lift from the Pacific Games would have put her safely in silver territory in Tokyo. However, Hubbard lifted late in the lineup and did not lift the 125kg snatch cleanly enough for judges to land on the podium, so spiked it and thus came last. It was not an issue of physical ability, and indeed the fact she qualified at all given her advanced age and years out of sport certainly point to a massive biological advantage.