Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Sonny Webster

British weightlifting champion Sonny Webster will be representing his country at the Olympics in Rio. Louis Emanuel had a bowl of porridge with the Bristol hopeful

Sonny Webster is beaming in his bright white Team GB t-shirt as he skips off Park Row and into Lean Meals, a health food café with huge canisters of protein powder stacked on the cupboards where the tea should be.

The t-shirt is brand new and it’s the first time he’s worn it since he was sent home from “kitting day” in Birmingham last week with two massive bags of sports gear, suits, trainers, sunglasses and flip-flops for Rio.

Apparently he, like all members of Team GB heading to the Olympics, had a personal shopper to pick his attire and get him the best fit. Judging by the sleeves which barely contain his biceps, they must not make the t-shirts in weightlifter sizes.

“It was the first time it’s felt sort of real,” Sonny, 22, says about the bizarre day out which he shows me pictures of like an excited teenager as we sit down to a gluten-free porridge with strawberries, banana, almond milk and a scoop of protein.

“It made it feel like we’re actually going. There was so much excitement. By the time we’re on the plane, who knows what it’ll be like.”

Sonny, who was born in High Wycombe but has live in Bristol for six years where he trains, qualified for the Olympics earlier this year becoming the British champion and breaking the British under 23 weightlifting record. 

“It kind of all just slotted into place,” he says in a rare moment of modesty.

Now he’s got to repeat it all at the Olympics though. And although he thinks he’s got “more in the tank”, he says he knows his limits and come August 13 he’s hoping for a top 10 finish. Pretty good considering weightlifters tend to peak in their early 30s.

So, besides the protein-infused porridge, how’s he preparing?

“It’s wake up, have breakfast, go to the gym, train for two hours, go home, eat again, sleep two hours, get up, eat again, go the gym, train another two hours, go home, eat again, go to sleep, and same over and over again.”

It’s an intense schedule which he’s happy to admit is also lonely at times. “A lot of the time I’m on my own. It’s quite a lonely sport, weightlifting. All the dedication and stuff, it’s just you at the end of the day.”

But he’s convinced it’s that dedication which sets him apart from the rest. “You have to be a real funny sort of person to go into the gym and put yourself through that every day doing hard workouts for very little rewards.”

He adds, stooping his thick neck down to spoon in more porridge: “I say funny because of the life you have to live being a professional sportsman. It’s about having that drive and dedication to want to train hard and get the best out of your body.

“You meet plenty of talented people who never make it because they’re not prepared to sacrifice all those extra things to be great. Other people want to lie in for longer and go out for a beer on a Friday night. You have to obsess over it. You have to be obsessed with trying to be great.”

The Olympic Games is the one driver which keeps reminding Sonny of why he needs to push himself.

“You know, you don’t get much money, recognition or media coverage, it’s very limited in weightlifting. So you’ve got to remind yourself why you do it and I do it because it’s got a competitive edge to it and I’ve always got to beat myself.

“But it’s also the adrenaline rush you get after training so long just to lift one extra kilo. You know how heavy a kilo is?” he says, picking up my glass of apple juice.

“It’s probably as heavy as this. It’s nothing. But when you’ve trained 12 weeks for it, that’s something different.”

I pick up on his point that there’s not much money or recognition in the sport and ask him why he chose to go into it when he had a bright future as a golfer from a young age.

“I was good at golf, but to be great it’s such a competitive sport. I decided I had more chance with weightlifting,” he says.

He says was previously funded by UK Sport to the tune of just £800 a month. The funding has since dried up for UK weightlifters, but Sonny was lucky to hook up with a generous sponsor at Empire Sports Club who pays for everything which goes with the routine, with enough left over to live a decent life in Bristol, a city Sonny says he has taken to his heart. His sponsorship has also allowed him to gain a degree in sports performance in his spare time.

As he scrapes up the last of the porridge the first other customer of the morning comes into the cafe and has a quick glance first at Sonny and then at his Team GB t-shirt.

Sonny reckons Team GB has a good chance of finishing in the top three again this year, aided by the highest number of athletes sent to an Olympics since Barcelona 1992.

They may also be aided by an almost complete ban on Russian athletes due to doping allegations which have tarnished all sports including weightlifting, where the current world record holder has recently been given a lifetime ban.

Sonny sees the positives: “I think what’s great is how much better the testing is getting and how much stricter countries are getting.

“Although it’s negative for sports and individuals, as an athlete you know it’s levelling the playing field and everyone becomes within reach.

“It’s warning people off that they can’t get away with it anymore. In the UK it’s an ethos that we compete as clean athletes, he says as he shows me the blood on his arm from a random spot test at 9pm last night.

“Personally I don’t know how athletes can stand on the podium and be proud of what they’ve achieved when they’ve had help from other things.”

So, what’s next after Rio?

“After the Olympics I will have to let my body rest, but unfortunately I can’t sit back. The other guys who won’t be there are going to be focussing straight on the commonwealth. So I’ve got to do catch up if I take any time off.”

Read more: Breakfast with Bristol24/7: Lee Haskins