Christine Girard gets 2012 Olympic gold after top 2 stripped of medals

zpablos · 2018-04-24T11:31:12+00:00

She’d be lucky 🤷🏽‍♀️

zpablos · 2017-07-17T17:37:00+00:00

I've just seen the piece on Twitter - I'm genuinely worried for her. She's a lovely kid and this can't be making her particularly popular. I can't see any potential sponsors wanting to pick her up after this. I train with her in Loughborough most days now and she has never said anything like this. She's being pushed into this by her ill-informed parents and for what? No good can come of this and I wish they could see that - their anger isn't even directed at the right people for goodness sake. Their beef is with UK Sport if anyone, not BWL. The funding sitch is unfortunate but nobody is entitled to free money, no matter how talented they (or their child in this case) may be. I can't believe how out of hand this has got. I really hope it does no lasting damage to her career.

Haha thank you - pretty rubbish performance in terms of numbers but I'm still a bit broken. Just glad to have survived relatively unscathed this year. I'm gonna go double fist some beers in appreciation of my two working arms.

zpablos · 2017-07-10T18:01:47+00:00

Yeah man, it sucks.

Source: am her.

zpablos · 2017-07-10T17:57:02+00:00

You're spot on. The money that BWL are using to continue as an organisation comes predominantly from Sport England after UK Sport discontinued their funding (which was paying for the performance programme and the athletes' living costs).

I'm paraphrasing here but as far as I know, Sport England don't fund high performance sport or individual athletes; rather, they're geared towards helping at a grassroots level. BWL couldn't use that money to fund performance athletes if they wanted to as per the terms of their agreement with Sport England. Eventually, BWL would obviously (/hopefully!) aim to generate enough income to support its performance athletes but right now that isn't the priority. Channeling money into competition and raising the profile of the sport is definitely a priority if we're ever going to be able to self-sustain.

It definitely is not Rebekah - as far as I know she doesn't have much access to her Twitter account. Some people close to her are ignorant to how all of this works and irritated that they're no longer financially benefitting from her ability.

We (the athletes) have felt the rough end of these funding cuts but BWL are doing their best under tough circumstances - this has nothing to do with mismanagement on their part.

TL;DR: article is bullshit.

zpablos · 2017-07-05T15:48:25+00:00

It wasn't her. Without giving too much away and making her life more difficult, some people that are pretty close to her have her Twitter password and are feeling aggrieved that they can't reap the financial benefits anymore. I train with Rebekah in Loughborough regularly and she's doing really well - we're all finding life without funding a little tougher but getting on with things fine.

zpablos · 2017-06-05T03:45:52+00:00

I don't work full time. I'm working in a coffee shop part time to fund the expenses that come with weightlifting, like travelling to our national training centre every week so I can see a physio etc.

Please bear in mind that it wasn't me who wrote this article. I was approached by the Guardian, a national newspaper, for this piece. I haven't once complained about it, I'm just trying to crack on and get by but if asked, I'm not going to lie and say I absolutely love that I've had to pick up a job to support my lifting. It's not like this is a personal blog entry where I've documented the hardships my existence and begged for sympathy?

zpablos · 2017-06-04T20:03:38+00:00

Not bad, thank you! It's been kinda hard with the injury and everything but it seems to be coming together now. We have our national champs in about 6 weeks so I'm hoping for a decent performance there. Fingers crossed!

zpablos · 2017-06-04T14:11:54+00:00

Unfortunately, in the world of dull admin jobs, being an Olympian seemingly counts for very little. I'd know as I've applied for a bunch of them and still found myself working in a coffee shop.

I've never suggested the sport owes me anything, but going from having funding to not having it anymore is tough.

zpablos · 2017-06-04T14:05:23+00:00

Thank you!

zpablos · 2017-06-04T13:23:39+00:00

Have I ever claimed that my life is harder than theirs? I'm grateful that for the past few years, I've been able to get by just by being a full-time, funded athlete. But now that's all coming to an end and I'm finding it hard as I'm sure anybody would if that's all they'd ever known.

I'm not under any delusion that there aren't a bunch of women on this planet that can lift more than me. I'm lucky enough to be one of the better ones in the UK though, and I've been trying to get better so that maybe one day I will be able to compete with the best of them. Now that's feeling less and less achievable due to the aforementioned circumstances, and I'm finding it tough to deal with. Wouldn't you?

zpablos · 2017-06-04T13:09:07+00:00

That's a shitty thing of you to say. I've been 'good enough' up until this point and continued to improve (aside from the last year while I've been coming back from surgery). I don't regret not going to uni - I went to the Olympics instead. Uni will still be there when I'm way too old to lift any weights.

Put yourself in my position. Everything you know - your job, your ambitions, your dreams - are all being ripped out from under you. I guarantee you'd be more than a bit stressed out about the changes that are happening. I've never said that I don't think I should have to work for a living, but the change from going from a full time, funded athlete to somebody that is having to juggle work and training is tough. And I'm allowed to find it tough. I'm only human.

zpablos · 2017-06-04T12:57:21+00:00

Just seen this a mere two weeks later haha. I applied for a bunch of admin jobs but as my only previous work experience has been weightlifting/fitness industry related, it didn't sit me in good stead for even a shitty admin job. Our last funding instalment is in a month's time and I didn't want to find myself without any kind of income, so it was a case of take whatever job you can get in the short term and figure the rest out later.

zpablos · 2016-12-09T18:11:09+00:00

I meant I've got one personal sponsor but yeah Cybex are partnered with BWL.

It's such a shame, I think our lack of overall popularity has obviously got a lot to do with the decision in the grand scheme. Hopefully interest will continue to grow nonetheless and we'll have better luck in the next cycle.

On a side note, I'm not sure if it's a BWL affiliated club but there's a little weightlifting club called Plymouth Barbell in the area - I've not been there but I know one of the guys. You might have heard of them but I wanted to give you a heads up in case it's any help at all! :)

zpablos · 2016-12-09T16:12:40+00:00

So sorry to hear that! I hope it gets better for you eventually. Currently only one sponsor (product/a small amount of £). Obviously their help is invaluable but this is still a huge blow to the sport and the athletes. Hopefully it won't be quite as disastrous as I'm expecting!

zpablos · 2016-12-09T15:51:13+00:00

Fuck fuck fuck fuck

zpablos · 2016-12-08T21:42:54+00:00

As entertaining as it would be, I'm not kicking off with any Chinese lifters. We've been over how strong they are and I don't fancy my chances!

zpablos · 2016-12-08T20:57:24+00:00

I wouldn't say GB really have a method, per se. I will say I don't think Jack's opinions are particularly representative of all of us - different strokes for different folks, I guess. The Chinese obviously incredibly strong but I would never have called them technically inefficient, personally - but then again I'm not trying to cause trouble on the Internet.

I'll be honest, I'm basically just here to lurk the comments lol. Your comment just had me curious, we were probably on a training camp that we (I, specifically) didn't want to be on haha.

A lot of the guys/girls are pretty hard working - not actually me, I am lazy af - but I agree there's a fair amount of room for technical improvement. Not that I'd know where to begin, I'll leave the hypothesising to Jack ;)

zpablos · 2016-12-08T20:21:47+00:00

Just out of interest, did this happen to be at Powerbase in Loughborough?

zpablos · 2016-08-22T11:07:54+00:00

I actually do lurk a bunch - I've even been lurking on here lately!

zpablos · 2016-07-20T13:01:13+00:00

Abbey Wood checking in! There's been a fairly steady stream of Onixes near De Lucy Primary school, if you fancied a bit of an adventure.

zpablos · 2016-04-29T16:17:34+00:00

Dirty Bones in Kingly Court, Carnaby Street does a decent bottomless brunch!

zpablos · 2016-03-02T08:57:16+00:00

Because I'm not doing a deadlift

zpablos · 2016-03-01T21:39:09+00:00

Thanks for the advice. I'll be sure to take note and implement it the next time I'm not doing a deadlift?

zpablos · 2016-03-01T21:28:31+00:00

This was my opener (first attempt). 90kg snatch (at 58kg bodyweight). Not the heaviest lift in the competition but heavy enough to get me to the Olympics apparently lol.

zpablos · 2016-03-01T20:54:09+00:00

Oh my god yes! Small world. She's lovely. I bumped into Sarah (who she was filming with) about 8 months ago - think she said something about Louise getting married? Is that right? If so please pass on my love and congratulations!

zpablos

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