Commonwealth Games 2022: Hannah Crymble swaps uneven bars for weightlifting for Birmingham

Hannah Crymble swapped the uneven bars of the gymnastics arena for a weightlifting bar and has been rewarded by qualifying to represent Northern Ireland at this summer’s Commonwealth Games.

The 26-year-old nurse from Newtownards will compete in the 59kg weight category in Birmingham.

“It is quite exciting, it is not something I thought I would ever be doing and I’m looking forward to the whole experience and seeing how I get on, it is a dream come,” commented Crymble.

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Gymnastics was the first sport Crymble excelled at competing internationally.

“I was with the Rathgael club in Bangor. I started off in artistic gymnastics, but I move to acrobatic, it is called a trio so there were three off us," she added.

“I represented Northern Ireland, but it was always at a lower level and not the level that I am now in weightlifting.

“I just kind of grew out of gymnastics. I stopped when I was 17 years old, I just got to a level where I wasn’t going to progress any more and I just wanted to focus on school a bit more.

“I started CrossFit then I made the switch from that to weightlifting, I started doing competitions and now I’m here.

“Switching from CrossFit to weightlifting seems quite popular. I think it is because there is weightlifting in the CrossFit, I think people who release that they are quite good at weightlifting decide to give it a go competitively.

“I think this is only my fourth year weightlifting, so I am relatively new to the sport. I need to be competing because I lost a couple of years of competitions due to Covid.

“I think my competition was the Dublin Open in 2018. It went okay, I snatched 60kg and clean and