Weightlifting: Lynes takes up a new line in equal opportunities

Helpfully, Maggie Lynes had prepared a list of her medals, caps, championships and records in readiness for our chat. Just as well, for it is a lengthy one, stretching almost 20 years and likely to be extended as the south London-based athlete heads off tomorrow to her third Commonwealth Games.

The decision to include, for the first time, women's weightlifting at Manchester has given Lynes' career a lift, so to speak, after she had competed at the 1994 and 1998 Games as a shot-putter. This time she failed to qualify in the shot, but the disappointment was minimal. At 39, Lynes was already safely installed in the seven-strong England lifting squad as the super-heavy representative.

That makes Maggie smile. Though solidly put together, as a shot-putting weightlifter should be, she is by no means bulky. "The heaviest class is 75 kilos and above," she explained. "I am not much over that but it means I compete against people weighing anything, and there are some pretty heavy girls out there. Seeing them makes me feel pretty good."

A look at her sporting CV would make anybody feel pretty good. In weightlifting: twice European champion, four times EU gold medallist, seven times British champion and English native champion on another five occasions. As a shot-putter: twice AAA national indoor champion and 35 international caps. Maggie's misfortune is that her shot-put career moved in tandem with another long-enduring lady, Judy Oakes.

Lynes, who works as an inspector of children's homes and lives at Hither Green, was born in Leicester but her family soon moved to Lancashire and then on to the West Country where, as a schoolgirl, she took up athletics. Like all kids, she wanted to be a sprint star. "But my club, City of Plymouth, asked me to fill in at other events to help them get points. Soon I started to get better results as a thrower and went to my only English Schools' Championships as a javelin competitor. In the end I broke away from track somewhat, doing long and high jumps, javelin and shot-put."

Under the tutelage of Mike Winch, twice a shot-put silver winner at Commonwealth Games, Lynes improved so rapidly that it was decided to specialise and she first represented her country in 1985. Then, on the introduction of weightlifting into women's sport in 1986, Winch suggested Maggie give that a go, too, since many of the disciplines were similar. She has been combining the two ever since. "I stopped weightlifting briefly in 1992 in order to concentrate on the shot for the '94 Commonwealth Games, but picked it up again at the end of last year when it was included for Manchester," she said.

Lynes was not a record-setter in the shot. "Trying to beat Judy Oakes was not easy," she said. Her best put is 16.57m and the British record is over 19m. "But my best would actually have got me a medal at Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and wouldn't have been far short of a medal at Victoria in 1994. So in Commonwealth Games terms, my shot-putting is OK, in world terms not so good.

"The level has dropped now. If Judy is throwing 19 metres she can compete with most people. Athletes were making the final at the last Olympics with less than 18 metres. Possibly the drug testing had a lot to do with it. I certainly can't believe people are getting worse."

It is possible that, by default, Maggie will be operating in her best sport at Manchester, the discipline where she once held English, British and EU records. At the English Championships this year she lifted a 180kg total – 80 in the snatch and 100 in clean and jerk. Her one regret is that she has never got into Britain's Olympic teams, the closest occasion being Seoul in 1988 when she finished fourth in the shot-put trials and the first three were chosen. "If weight- lifting had been in those Olympics I would definitely have been there because the British team was so strong at that time," she claimed.

Since the weightlifting competition comes at the very end in Manchester, Maggie and her team-mates face a long wait. "I will probably start chewing my nails because, being the heaviest, I lift last of all the girls. I am not due to lift until 3 August, the day before the closing ceremony."

So will she enjoy herself watching all the other events while awaiting her turn? "I wish I could. But there has been a great demand for tickets and availability is nil. I don't think I am actually going to be able to watch any other sport, which is a great shame, unless I can somehow buy tickets. I will be sitting in the village watching on TV what is happening down the road. It is going to be tough."

That athletes are not automatically provided with entry to the other sports does not come as a great surprise to Lynes. She has long battled to represent her country for no reward other than, as she says, "pleasure, fame and injuries." This time, for the first time, Sport England have provided her with four months' Lottery funding. "The money is less than one month's salary and I am having to take annual leave from my job, but I am not knocking it, I can now afford extra coaching.

"It is nice to get some cash, if a bit late in the day from my point of view. Years ago, it would have helped me a lot, maybe I could have spent more time training in warmer climates. At the moment we go to warm-weather training once a year, which we fund ourselves. Competing for my country has definitely cost me more than I've made out of it.

"This is a sore point with a lot of us. At a meeting a thrower will get £100, where the sprinters pick up two or three thousand each. One meeting I was at, Linford Christie and Carl Lewis got £40,000 each, though it was fair to say they were the ones putting bums on seats, not the likes of me. Yet we are all scoring the same amount of points for our country. But I never did it for the money, which is just as well."

Having planned to call it a day after Kuala Lumpur in 1998, Maggie did not need much tempting to go for glory again. "I thought, 'I can't stop now'. It's like a disease. I am already thinking about Melbourne in 2006. Not as a competitor, though. Perhaps I can get there as a coach."