World Weightlifting Championship: Emily Muskett wins bronze for GB

Emily Muskett won gold in the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast

Emily Muskett became Britain's first medallist at the World Weightlifting Championships in 25 years with bronze in the clean and jerk in Thailand.

Commonwealth champion Muskett, 29, lifted 126kg in the 79kg division to finish behind Americans Katherine Nye (136kg) and Mattie Rogers (134kg).

"It feels absolutely amazing," Muskett told BBC Sport.

She was fourth overall after lifting 100kg in the snatch, behind Nye, Rogers and North Korea's Kim Hyo-sim.

Myrtle Augee was Britain's most recent Worlds medallist, claiming overall and clean and jerk bronze in Istanbul, Turkey in 1994.

British Weightlifting had its funding support removed by UK Sport following its failure to challenge for a medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

However, last year it was awarded £192,000 from UK Sport's new £3m 'aspiration fund', created to help athletes in previously unfunded sports qualify for Tokyo 2020.

"I've been working three jobs and just training when I can, which is hard to balance, but all the British lifters are in the same situation," said Muskett, who moved to Australia for work last year.

"I just hope someone from UK Sport will take a look at us and help because there's so much potential here, particularly on the women's side of the sport."

Team-mate Zoe Smith finished sixth in the 59kg division and Sarah Davies eighth in the 64kg division this week.

In September 2017 the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) handed out 12-month bans to nine nations, including Russia, China and Turkey, for serious anti-doping violations relating to retested samples from Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

Seventy athletes were then barred from last year's World Championships and a further 40 from the 2019 European Championships after failing to accurately record their whereabouts data, which is used to ensure regular out-of-competition testing.

"I'm in a weight division where there are athletes from nations who have been caught out in the past and for the first time I'm finishing ahead of them," Muskett said.

"It's finally a level playing field, which is really encouraging, and we just have to hope it keeps moving in the right direction."