'My top goal to walk away proud' - Hannah Crymble's Commonwealth Games targets extend beyond medal hunt in Glasgow
When Hannah Crymble isn’t working on the wards the Team NI weightlifter is in the gym.
The Newtownards nurse achieved a sixth-place finish in Birmingham four years ago and winning a second consecutive British Championship has booked her place for Glasgow and this summer's Commonwealth Games.
Crymble admits there are scarifies to be made being in a demanding full-time job and competing as an elite athlete.
“I’m still working as a nurse, I'm working in the Northern Ireland Cancer Centre still balancing both,” she said. “I'm extremely lucky with the team that I work with, my manager and colleagues are both very supportive and interested in my sport...so we all just work together for my rota around shifts and training.
“I work 13-hour shifts, they can be days and nights...so if I'm at work, I'm not training.
"It’s just not feasible for me to get up at four or five in the morning to train or be training at 10pm when I get home from work.
“So, they're just seen as my rest days, depending on where I am in my training cycle...which obviously isn't ideal because a 13-hour shift running around a ward isn't exactly a rest.”
Crymble was delighted to book her spot on the boat for Glasgow.
“It was quite a difficult qualification process for myself, so to finally get that call that I'd been selected was probably one of the best I've ever received," she said. “So I'm just delighted to have made the team and I can't wait.
“My weight class (for qualification) in particular is just extremely competitive, so we're all really on top of each other in terms of our totals.
“In Birmingham, I'd only just started weightlifting...my second-ever international competition, so I was a wee bit a deer in the headlights, whereas this time round I've obviously a lot more experience.”
Having already experienced a Commonwealth Games, Crymble is going to relish every moment in Glasgow.
“Just take regular moments to just stop and take it in, you know...get chatting to all the other countries there, really just embrace the experience with the rest of the team,” said Crymble. “We had a smaller team that went last time round.
"So, yeah, just to really take it in and just enjoy it for what it is.
“It's probably my top goal to walk away proud from the performance I've put out, I do have particular numbers and totals in mind but I am going to keep them to myself.
"But they're all extremely achievable and I'm just really looking forward to seeing what the competition brings for me.
“I think with my experience now that I have with competing, I understand myself and the competition a lot more now of what weights to open with in my second and third attempts.
“Back in Birmingham, I didn't really know that I probably opened a wee bit too heavy than what I was really capable of...so this time around, I'm definitely a much more experienced lifter and I'm a lot more confident in my abilities as well.”