Commonwealth Games: Weightlifting athlete who represented Jamaica in Birmingham returns to her job at M&S

Weightlifting athlete Sky Norris, who represented Jamaica in the Commonwealth Games, has revealed she has a supermarket job
Sky Norris (Credit GoFundMe)Sky Norris (Credit GoFundMe)
Sky Norris (Credit GoFundMe)

A Jamaican weightlifter, who competed in the 2022 Commonwealth Games, has revealed she was juggling training with a supermarket job.

Sky Norris, who lives in Crystal Palace, started weightlifting when she was just 17. This week she became one of the first ever female weightlifters to represent Jamaica in the Commonwealth Games.

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The 23-year-old came sixth out of 11 competitors in the Women’s 55kg category, on Saturday (30 July) at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre.

She got an overall score of 170kg - lifting 78kg for her snatch, and 92kg for her clean and jerk - beating her own personal best.

She was just 4kg behind fifth place, and 33kg behind first place winner Adijat Olarinoye from Nigeria.

Sky made it to the international sports event, which only takes place every four years, entirely self-funded.

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The athlete, who has dual British-Jamaican citizenship, works in Operations at Marks and Spencer in Elephant and Castle.

She works the early shift five days a week, starting at 6.30am and finishing at 10.30am. After work she endures a two-hour session with her coach at Crystal Palace Weightlifting Gym.

On April 21 this year, a GoFundMe page was set up to help Sky raise money, after she had been selected to compete as “funding for weightlifting is limited” and “athletes are expected to pay for expenses that are not covered by the federation”.

The page had a target of £300, and at the time of writing there has been 71 donations , totaling £2943.

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