Flame Bearers: Pathways to Paris

Sarah Davies is Great Britain's best ever female weightlifter on a pound for pound basis, lifting between 100-125kg (or 220-275 lbs) depending on the event, snatch or clean and jerk. She's also an international beauty pageant queen. Sarah’s journey is about defying convention, whether it’s in beauty pageantry or weightlifting: she goes for what she wants, and takes action for what she believes is right, even when she has to go against the grain. Across the worlds of sport and pageantry, Sarah is breaking unspoken rules of convention. In this episode, we talk about what it’s like being a female olympic weightlifter AND beauty pageant queen while taking on corrupt leadership inside the international Weightlifting Federation, the governing body for international weightlifting. We start with how she got into weightlifting, discuss how her love for weightlifting and pageantry connect, and then dive into her efforts to clean up the IWF as chair of the athlete’s commission. Contributing experts include Stephanie Best (Sarah's best friend), Holly Pirrie (Sarah's Former Pageant Director, Pageant Girl), Phil Andrews (CEO, USA Weightlifting), Dick Pound (Senior Active Member, International Olympic Committee), and Spencer Harris (Associate Professor of Sport Management, College of Business, University of Colorado in Colorado Springs).