Weightlifting: How I beat America's strongest woman at arm wrestling

Cheryl Haworth, America's strongest woman and the woman poised to be named the strongest in the world, has an interesting way of dealing with the media.

"Yes, I'll give you an interview," says the weightlifter, standing with a group of friends outside the Rail Pub bar here in Georgia's most beautiful city, where a neon sign for Draught Guinness winks enticingly from inside the windows. "But only if you can get me into this bar."

The problem is that Cheryl is not only America's strongest woman but also America's – and the world's – strongest teenager. She is 19 years old, weighs around 21 stones and on a good day can lift more than 352lb clean above her head. Even in fun-loving Savannah you need an ID card that proves you are 21 before you can enter a bar.

Fortunately, the manager of the Rail Pub, a friendly Irishman called Michael, is a man who can differentiate immediately between a journalistic enterprise of importance and gravitas and a blatant scam to get an under-age drinker into licensed premises. And it's not as though we're technically breaking the law: once inside Cheryl orders a cola. She's got to go training in the morning.

Training is something the teenager has been doing a lot of since – aged just 13 – she first discovered both the delights and down side of lifting heavy weights. She tells the story of how her father, Bob, took her to the Paul Anderson-Howard Cohen gym in Savannah, hoping to improve her strength for playing softball.

But instead of practising for softball, she started lifting weights. A coach at the gym – famous for its successful weightlifting team – started shouting out: "This is the strongest girl I've ever seen."

"I knew I was strong," says Cheryl, who studies historic preservation and illustration at the Savannah College of Art and Design. "It seemed second nature. [I wanted] to be an Olympic champion weightlifter."

Immediately, the young weightlifter started winning local competitions and then, very quickly, she developed a national and international profile.

At the 2000 Sydney Olympics – the first time that women's weightlifting was included as an official event – Cheryl took the bronze medal, her 275.5lb in the snatch breaking the American record, and finishing with a combined lift of 595lbs. Such achievements do not come without effort.

Cheryl says she trains five days a week, for anything ranging from one to three hours. Weights, flexibility, speed, technique are all worked on. Then the muscles have to be thoroughly iced.

"There is a lot of pain involved in lifting so much weight," she sighs. Her three friends Shawna, Rachel, and Stephanie – all weightlifters or former weightlifters themselves – nod in agreement. (Being aged more than 21 they are not drinking colas. Cheryl, meanwhile, is smoking a large Monte Cristo cigar – from the Dominican Republic, not Cuba, she insists patriotically.)

But, aside from the pain, Cheryl suggests one of the worst things is simply going into the gym "when you don't want to".

One of the things she gets asked about often is her body and her body image. As an athlete, she says, it is not something she can afford to be too vain about. She spends her time pumping and priming it, not looking in the mirror. "It's odd, because I'm a woman and I'm weightlifter so I should be all about feminism," she told one interviewer, adding teasingly: "Is that the word – feminism?"

Her friends say that it can sometimes be especially difficult being accepted by men. As a result they often date male weightlifters. They say it can sometimes be an insular world.

"Athletics is growing, it's a lot more accepted," says Cheryl. "My grandmother was appalled [by what I do]. In Savannah lots of people know me. Most people think what I do is pretty cool."

Cheryl's manager, George Wallach, also thinks it is pretty cool. "Mr Wallet" has expressed his belief that Cheryl could make a handsome sum of money if she can prove she's happy within her self. "She's a big gal and, for a lot of women who aren't completely comfortable with themselves, she makes them feel better," he told The New York Times.

He said there are a number of ways she could cash in on this, a large-size clothing line, motivational speaking tours and "maybe even an animated series – Cheryl Haworth, Strongest Woman in the World, saves... whatever".

If the success of such a venture depends on Cheryl proving she is happy, then she is already halfway there. Her nickname in the US Olympic team was "Fun" and she is even good-natured enough when The Independent – cheating outrageously – beats her at an arm wrestle.

She also seems apparently down to earth. If the weightlifting does not make her a fortune, she always has her studies in historic preservation and illustration, and the opportunities they offer – especially in such an historic city as Savannah. "It has great job opportunities," she says. "You are never going to be out of work with that."