Studying Law, While Winning Olympic Gold...

“Weightlifting is a lot like picking up this apple… but heavier”

Think your university course is challenging? Imagine combining the demands of a full-on degree in law (yep, not exactly an ‘easy’ option) with full-time training as a world-class weight lifter!

Think I’m kidding? Allow me to introduce you to Svetlana Podobedova, two-time world champion, two-time European champion, three-time champion of Kazakhstan, champion of Asia, Olympic gold medallist… and law student.

Svetlana (left) won a gold medal for Kazakhstan in the women’s weightlifting at this year’s Olympics, while taking a bit of time out from her law studies at Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (KazNU)*.

For all of you who spent this summer watching the Olympics on TV, while taking a bit of time out from general lying around: yes, you should be ashamed. Deeply.

I spoke to Svetlana to find out how she handles this weighty combination (pun fully intended), what it felt like to win gold, and also to ask where she managed to get one of those magic watches that stops time. (She said she doesn’t have one, but seriously – how else would you fit in that amount of training and studying!?)

She’s originally from Russia, so I assume it must have felt a bit strange to be competing against Russian representative Natalya Zabolotnaya in the final. However, if she did feel at all weird, that seems to have been completed wiped out by the exhilaration of winning an Olympic gold.

“I felt something incomprehensible, like a global and kind of dumb happiness,” she says. “There weren’t any special thoughts; perhaps, indeed, this is what they call euphoria.”

In fact, Svetlana says winning Olympic gold is the high point of her life so far, on a par with meeting her fiancé, fellow weightlifter Vladimir Sedov.

When she arrived back in Kazakhstan, she was met at the airport by a group of KazNU students, as well as boxer Ermahan Ibraimov, a former Olympic champion and KazNU graduate. As you can see in the picture, they met her with flowers and apples – I didn’t ask if this was traditional, but I guess Olympic athletes need to eat plenty of fruit…

Understandably, Svetlana is now ready to take a rest and catch up with family and friends, but says she’ll be starting a new training program again soon. She also admits she’s got her sights set on another gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics – so keep an eye out for her! (Maybe mangos next time?)

Incidentally, imagine having an Olympic gold-medal-winning weight lifter in your corner of the court room – think you might win your case!?

*Rankings fact of the day: KazNU is also celebrating, having just moved up into the top 400 of the QS World University Rankings for the first time.