These stories quite uplifting

An injured back didn't let her complete this lift, but gritty Michaela Breeze of Britain eventually hoisted 100 kilograms. (Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images)

BEIJING - The back began to bother her during her training about two weeks ago, but what was Michaela Breeze to do?

"I had to come," she said. "There was no one to replace me."

Idle boasting? No, not at all. Michaela Breeze is the Great Britain weightlifting team. There are no males. There are no other women. There is just 29-year-old Michaela Breeze.

So she arrived here knowing that a medal was out of the question.

"I wanted to compete with the best," she said. "But that went out the window three weeks ago."

She could not perform at her maximum level, but that's no reason to avoid the Olympics. If you can't be your best, you can at least be the best you can possibly be on the day you compete. And if you are a one-person team, why, that's no decision at all. You come.

Weightlifting happens to be the best-kept secret of the Summer Games. Watching these men and women lift prodigious weights over their heads is compelling. There is great drama and there is also great intrigue, as coaches and competitors try to outfox foes by changing the size of their next lift.

They all pay a fearful price to participate in the sport they love. Think about it. What part of the body isn't affected? Fingers, wrists, forearms, biceps, triceps, neck, elbows, shoulders, knees, calves, ankles, thighs, abdomens, and pectorals all are susceptible to injury. Then, of course, there are the backs, always the backs.

To be a weightlifter requires far more than just brute strength. There are a lot of big young women in America, for example, but there is only one Cheryl Haworth. She has an unexpected package of flexibility, balance, and timing that distinguishes her from any other 295-pound lady of your acquaintance. She picked up a bronze medal in Sydney when she was 17 and she may come home with another one.

The final piece of the weightlifting puzzle is mental toughness. It would be a vast oversimplification to suggest that in the final analysis weightlifting success represents a triumph of mind over matter, but it would be no exaggeration to say that the mind is equally important in the process. You must convince yourself that what you are about to do is not only possible but logical.

Now consider the added burden of being a woman. Men who choose to lift weights are taken at face value. They have no need to explain themselves. But it's a little different when you are female. Weightlifting is regarded as so, well, unfeminine. But in the case of women such the competitors in yesterday's 63-kilogram competition, they look like, well, women. Well-conditioned women, to be sure, but women nevertheless.

"I've got muscles, that's true," said American Natalie Woolfork, who finished fourth in the morning Group B competition. "But I don't look like a man." Casey Burgener obviously agrees. They're getting married Nov. 8.

Woolfork didn't get a medal but she pulled off five of her six lifts and she brightened up the building with her great smile.

"That was my goal," she said. "Come here, do my lifts, have a good time, and have a smile on my face."

Fellow American Carissa Gump, who hails from Essex Junction, Vt., was not quite as buoyant, but no one could be.

"I'm disappointed," she said, "but I'm here. I'm an Olympian, and no one can take that away from me."

Michaela Breeze is also an Olympian, and she gave the audience a true Bud Greenspan experience.

She began her day with a modest 80-kilogram snatch, which was a sure sign she was not herself. But after slamming down the barbell, having successfully lifted 85 kilograms on her second lift, she grabbed her lower back and limped off the stage. She was next seen lying face-down in the backstage area, being massaged. She appeared to be weeping, and her day appeared to be done. Under the circumstances, she had performed extraordinarily well.

But when the clean-and-jerk phase of the competition began, who should return to make a lift but Michaela Breeze? The crowd, which had been rather subdued (no Chinese lifters in this group), came to life as she successfully lifted 80 kilograms over her head. The total was absolutely insignificant. Michaela Breeze, in obvious pain, was doing her Baron de Coubertin/Grantland Rice thing. She was taking part.

She hoisted 90 kilograms on her second lift, and when she came out for a third and final time, the announcer greeted her by saying, "Let's have a big hand for her lofty spirit."

Michaela Breeze was going to make an attempt at 100 kilograms. She was here, by God, and she was going to do something to justify her presence in Beijing. She got the barbell up to her shoulders as the crowd began to roar. Her right leg buckled when she planted it behind her in anticipation of the second stage of the lift, but she kept her balance. She raised the load over her head, and everything - arms, legs, head - wobbled. Her face was contorted in pain, but she was determined to make this lift. She extended her arms, held the 100 kilograms aloft, and when she threw it down, the judges having acknowledged it as a legitimate lift, she smiled, however briefly, and pointed both index fingers to the cheering crowd.

And then she staggered off the stage.

"I've never had to push through anything like that before," said Michaela Breeze. "But it's only once every four years in the Olympic Games, isn't it?"

Indeed.

Bob Ryan is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at ryan@globe.com.