Silver medallist Maude Charron of Canada poses on the podium after winning an unlikely silver medal, in Paris, on Aug. 8.Amanda Perobelli/Reuters
Maude Charron didn’t go to Paris to defend the gold medal she won in Tokyo because that wasn’t possible.
In the interim, they’d eliminated her class in Olympic weightlifting. In order to continue competing, she had either to gain weight or lose it. The Canadian decided to lose it. That was difficult.
Then her knee went and wouldn’t get better. That was difficult.
Competing in her new class – 59 kilograms – she wasn’t making the same impression. That was difficult.
She went to Paris and on Thursday she lost. That was easy.
It is hard to imagine a defending champion in any sport who’s ever taken a loss better. When she realized she had secured a silver, Ms. Charron was standing in the ready room backstage. She immediately burst into tears of joy.
Later, she did a full circle of the podium and hugged a Taiwanese colleague like she’d recently been rescued from sea. She leaped up into her place and started crying again. At certain points, all three women on the stage appeared to be shedding tears.
Backstage, Ms. Charron cried again. Several times.
Canada's Maude Charron competes in the women's 59kg weightlifting event during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the South Paris Arena on Aug. 8.MIGUEL MEDINA/Getty Images
“I didn’t come here for a medal. I didn’t come here for a podium,” Ms. Charron said. “All I came here for was the experience.”
These days, Ms. Charron – who is 5-foot-1 – trains six or seven pounds heavier than her competing weight, and then has to cut for every tournament.
The other, bigger problem with changing weight classes: the people waiting to greet you. Ms. Charron was dropped into a class with a defending gold medalist, as well as a defending world champion. In essence, they’d created a sort of weightlifting all-star league.
The atmosphere inside the poetically named South Paris Arena 6 on Thursday was charged from the get-go because of those rivals. Many were here to root for one of Taiwan’s biggest stars, Kuo Hsing-Chun. A competing section was there for China’s Luo Shifang.
Along with hunger and injury, Ms. Charron would have to overcome geopolitics.
In the end, she lifted as well as she had at the higher weight class in Tokyo. She set an Olympic record in the snatch, quickly eclipsed again by Luo.
She tried for another in clean-and-jerk. Her last lift would have set all sorts of records and put her temporarily in a gold-medal spot. She managed to get the bar up on her shoulders. But her legs buckled as she tried to put it over her head.
Maude Charron of Canada competes during the women's 59kg weightlifting event at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 8, in Paris, France.Dita Alangkara/The Associated Press
Ms. Luo, the eventual gold medalist, was preparing to go to stratospheric weights to push Ms. Charron aside. But once she’d won it, the Chinese lifter came out, did a little lap of the stage and ran back inside again. Competition over.
It was the rare instance in which everyone standing on the podium appeared happy with their result. A really lovely Olympic feeling about it.
As she spoke with reporters, Ms. Charron was wandering around with her silver medal in a box. She was also carrying the gift box they give winners. She held both loosely at her side, waving them around occasionally to emphasize a point.
Ms. Charron has spoken many times about how she enjoyed winning in Tokyo, and little else. Especially the “anxiety” that suffused the athletes’ village. Athletes were tested for COVID-19 daily. Anyone who came up positive would be eliminated. Weightlifters compete near the end of an Olympics. It must have been a long, lonely wait.
Ms. Charron won at 64 kg and looked pretty happy doing it. But she says she wasn’t.
“It ended well, but I’m like, ‘Where’s my gang? Where’s my support system?’ It was happiness, but also … not regret, but maybe a sour feeling? I thought, ‘I did all of that. It’s wonderful. But I’m alone.’”
No one feels alone in Paris. The venues are rammed. The people in them are up for every event. There was only one French competitor in Ms. Charron’s grouping, and she did not show well. So the crowd shifted seamlessly to everyone else. They cheered her as hard as they did the Nigerian, the Colombian, the Ukrainian and the Filipina. They cheered hardest for the competitors who were struggling. When the Ukrainian appeared to injure herself in her last lift and staggered away, the crowd roared with sympathy.
“We need that fire,” Ms. Charron said. “We’re lifting a crazy amount of weight. Sometimes, by yourself, it’s not enough.”
No wonder Ms. Charron enjoyed it so much, despite not winning. Weightlifters only get one big gig, and this is it. She has finally got to experience it to the fullest.
Considering all the complications and the level of competition, this is one of the most unlikely silver medals at these Games.
Ms. Charron, a charming 31-year-old who plans to become a police officer, has the unusual wherewithal to understand winning really isn’t everything. It does help when you have a gold tucked in a closet somewhere at home.
Medalists, from left to right, Maude Charron of Canada, silver, Luo Shifang of China, gold, and Kuo Hsing-Chun of Taiwan, bronze, celebrate on the podium during the medal ceremony for the women's 59kg weightlifting event at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Aug. 8, in Paris, France.Kin Cheung/The Associated Press
Long after the Chinese and Taiwanese had left the mixed zone, Ms. Charron was still milling around in there. She was happily chatting with anyone who held out a microphone and hugging anyone who came at her with arms outstretched. She took a phone call. She did some selfies. She cried some more.
It was the longest mixed-zone winning lap I think I’ve ever seen. In the end, the press attachés were near weeping themselves, begging for her to leave so that they could do a winners’ news conference. A men’s competition was beginning in 90 minutes. At this rate, they were never going to make it.
Ms. Charron kept gabbing.
“Now all I want to do is celebrate with my family,” she said. “I saw them in the crowd. I heard them. That’s why I came here.”