British weightlifters inspired by talk from Olympic medallists

OLYMPIC hopeful weightlifters got to meet two of their idols at a training camp last week staged at British Weight Lifting's high performance centre in Leeds.

INSPIRATIONAL: GB Head Coach Tamas Feher meets former Olympic medallists Louis Martin MBE and Erzsebet Markus at British Weight Lifting's high performance centre in Leeds (Snowdons)

Hungarian lifting legend Erzsebet Markus, the former World and European Champion and Olympic Silver medallist at the Sydney Games in 2000, attended the weekend camp to pass on tips and inspiration to the young GB hopefuls.

And also present at the camp and well received for his inspirational talk was Louis Martin, the four-time world champion, European champion, Commonwealth champion and Olympic bronze and silver medallist in 1960 and 1964.

"It was quite an honour for Erzsebet Markus to come and talk to us because she's competed at the highest level, she's been there and done it," said Zoe Smith, England's Commonwealth bronze medallist.

"We watched her performance at Sydney in 2000, and it was awe-inspiring - she's the strongest woman I've ever met," added GB's Hannah Powell. "It was great to hear about the sacrifices she made to get where she did.

"It really gives us an impression of how hard it is to get to the top, but it's made us even more determined to train hard and be the best we can."