THE diminutive frame of 15-year-old Zoe Smith from Abbey Wood, looks at first glance, out of place among the straining hulks and clanking iron in the Europa Weightlifting Club in Fraser Road, Erith. But the softly spoken Year 11 pupil from Townley Grammar School for Girls in Bexleyheath was clearly at home in this unlikely setting.

She should be, spending two hours a day, five days a week, in the gym lifting heavy weights and following the punishing training schedule set by her personal coach Andrew Callard, himself a gold medal winner for England at the 1994 Victoria Commonwealth Games and competitor at the Barcelona Games in 1992.

Pointing a bloke at least three times the size of 58kg Zoe, bench pressing weights that look like tractor wheels, I say, half in jest; “I bet that is light weight stuff for you isn’t it?”

“Yeh” is the relaxed and somewhat disarming reply.

But Zoe has clearly been surprising people since she started in the sport in June 2006, “just to make up the numbers” for the Greenwich borough team in the London Youth Games as she modestly tells it: “Just by chance I was doing gym at the same centre and they just pulled me in and asked me if I’d like to do some weightlifting.

“And I came down to the gym and found I was quite good at it.”

So good in fact that she has gone on to win every national competition she has entered since the age of 13, including British Under 20s and Under 18s competitions, setting 217 British age group records along the way.

In 2008 Zoe won gold at the Commonwealth Youth Games and silver in the ‘clean and jerk’ competition at the European Youth Championships. An excellent year was crowned in December when she was named British Olympic Association Athlete of the Year.

Her success was followed up in May this year with a strong showing at the World Youth Championships where took eighth place with a personal best 94kg lift in the ‘clean and jerk’. Zoe also managed sixth place in the Under 20 European Junior Championships in July, competing in the 58kg bodyweight category.

Looking forward to the Games in London 2012 Zoe says her training is going well and is confident that if she achieves her goal and makes the Olympic team, home support could really be an advantage to her and all the British athletes: “Just to be at 2012 will be an absolute dream but I want to make the A Final, because there is an A and a B Final and the A Final is where the medals are given out, so to get there would be brilliant.”