SOUTH PARIS ARENA — Emily Campbell became an overnight superstar on the back of a silver medal in Tokyo.

Her infectious personality and unique style connected with a British public desperate to move on from 18 months of Covid hell.

She has since become a regular face on TV and social media, most notably as part of a widespread advertising campaign for Team GB’s banking partner Natwest that put her on billboards across the country.

It brings with it a pressure of its own – not least on her appearance, and she walked on stage for the final on Sunday with the Olympic rings stitched into the back of her hair by a good friend, celebrity stylist Lisa Farrall.

“She came out and did it for me,” said Campbell, who won bronze, Great Britain’s last medal of the Paris Games.

“We attached the rings this morning. We had a little play because it is a little heavy but it was perfect. It was all stitched in and it was good.

“You all kept talking about my hair in the lead up so I had to pull out something big so I hope you’re happy with it!”

It was smiles from start to finish for Campbell’s performance, on and off the stage. She set a personal best and British record and produced a lifetime best

It was still only good enough for third place and a bronze medal, one place worse than Tokyo.

But with 20 friends, sister, mother Linda and father Trevor all on hand to scream her name as she lifted a total of 288kg across the two disciplines, didn’t this one mean a little bit more than the medal in an empty room in Japan, despite the colour?

“Yeah, in some elements,” Campbell added.

“For me when I started weightlifting, we always set out that I’d make the Olympics in Paris and I would try and go for a medal. And obviously Tokyo was a bonus along the way.

“We’ve achieved the goal that we set out to do which was a medal in Paris, and I just got a bonus one along the way.”

She also said: “I kept saying Tokyo was amazing and obviously it was amazing. I won a medal.

“But this was so special today, it’s been a really tough road up to these Games. It’s not been easy for me. And they’ve been there every single step of the way.”

It has been the stand-out feature of these Games, the presence of friends and family in the stands to witness these feats. Without them in Tokyo, with athletes’ cheers echoing around empty stadiums, the Olympics lost much of its meaning and relevance. Full arenas have made feats like running two laps of a running track feel important again.

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Not much has changed for the athletes beyond more company in the stands, although Campbell is hoping for more company in the team in Los Angeles. The 30-year-old was a self-funded athlete in Tokyo, and her silver medal convinced UK Sport to commit more than £2million to the weightlifting programme.

“That would be lovely to have some friends here with me,” Campbell said.

“We’ve got some really good juniors coming up. They’re working really hard and again, hopefully, they can see me today and be like, ‘You know what, she’s gone and done it again, and we can do this’.

“I’m gonna be in and around University of Nottingham and trying to help and mentor some of the girls and some of the guys, motivate them to be like, ‘Right, come on, we can do this on the international stage, we can play’.”