A thread to celebrate our BRILLIANT Team GB women

[Clymene]

Not in chronological order and this is off the top of my head. Please add:

Emily Campbell - 87kg weightlifting
Emily won a silver medal after lifting a whopping 161kg. It's Britain's first Olympic weightlifting medal since 1984. Women have only been allowed to compete in weightlifting since 2000.

Emily is 27 and from Nottingham and is an SEN teacher who only started lifting weights 5 years ago. She has had no lottery funding but has been funded by her local community. She's trying to find a fashion brand to work with her.

She is EPIC!

Charlotte Worthington - BMX freestyle GOLD

Charlotte is from manchester and is another woman who has received fuck all funding (I'm guessing this will be a theme). She's a chef, she's 25 and it was only when she got funding from British cycling that she was able to cut down on her shifts at the restaurant to focus on her cycling. This is the first time bmx has featured in the Olympics.

Charlotte was the first woman to perform a 360 backflip which gave her the highest overall score in both women's and men's events. Hannah Roberts from the US has totally dominated the sport and was a dead cert to win but Charlotte totally blew her out the water

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/58047473

If you haven't seen her perform the backflip, watch it. She is a woman who defies gravity

This is Charlotte in action

We watched the BMX final with the kids just by chance and were HOOKED. It was absolutely amazing drama and competition and Charlotte Worthington smashed it on her second run- having fallen in her first run. Hannah Roberts was bolted on to win gold with her incredible first run - we were all so happy for Team GB and Charlotte but couldn’t help feeling awful for Hannah. They seemed really supportive of each other though, which was lovely.

Beth Schreiver - funded her training herself by working as a nursery teaching assistant after UK Sport decided that funding only went to mens BMX teams after Rio. She’s now the only female on the team at her training facility in Manchester.

The Gardirova twins - at the age of 16 - so funny, endearing, confident, humble and INSANELY talented.

I’m not ashamed to say that watching all these incredible women (and girls!) made me give up my love island addiction once and for all.

Laura Collett won team Gold in the eventing along with two men. She overcame an accident where she was in a coma for 6 days, punctured lung and lost the sight in one eye. She was also subject to death threats from racing fans for ridiculous reasons www.itv.com/news/2021-08-02/the-olympic-champ-who-overcame-a-fall-that-left-her-in-a-coma-and-death-threats

Charlotte Dujardin - now Team GB’s most decorated female Olympian. Her Mum started buying and selling horses in order to find her daughter’s training. She went to work for Carl Hester to help fund herself and he recognised her talent and began coaching her and employed her as a grooms woman.

These women and their families have all worked so hard for this and it’s what I love most about the Olympics!

@Kittii wow. That’s a story.

Fantastic thread, btw, OP!

Laura Collett rode a phenomenal she jumping round. She pulled her horse London 52 out from a freak out so deftly. Just superlative horsewomanship. I didn't realise she was blind in one eye. Seriously impressive riding.

Yes, have been following much of the above with eldest DC. Seriously inspiring women and stories.

I had no idea women couldn't take part in weightlifting until so recently.

great thread!

Love all of these ladies and also add Helen Glover. Her Olympic dream wasn't to be, but what she achieved after having 3 babies is phenomenal!

Can we make this global? So proud of the GB women- the Helen Glover documentary is amazing but there are some other incredible female stories too.

I would nominate Jade Carey, the US gymnast. After hearing the gymnastics squad would be cut from 5 to 4, her Dad (also her coach) and her travelled the world to ensure she scored enough points to qualify as an individual for floor and vault.

In the vault she stumbled on the first run and decided in mid air to perform a much simpler move to allow her to land without injury, losing her chance of a medal in the process. Despite being clearly gutted she continued to perform the hardest vault in the contest, even knowing she had no shot at a medal.

The commentators said it shower phenomenal skill to save herself on the first mistake and the camera’s showed her sobbing in her Dad’s arms. Yesterday she came back out for the floor final absolutely beaming and charged her way to gold. What incredible mental composure at just 21 years old!

Congratulations to the female athletes.