Idaho grandmother, 62, wins back her masters weightlifting world record
Michelle Galloway spent seven years mostly in bed with an illness nobody could name. At 62 she lifted 55 kilos in Athens and got her world record back.
22 October 2026
Photo: via WBAL-TV
Michelle Galloway, 62, won back a masters weightlifting world record in Athens this month, KIVI-TV in Boise reported.
Galloway teaches at a YMCA in Meridian, Idaho. She is a grandmother, and she calls herself “a strong old grandma.”
For seven years she was mostly in bed with an illness doctors never named.
My back hurt, my feet hurt. I couldn’t hold my grandbabies for very long. Everything just hurt.Michelle Galloway
When she started to get better, she moved to Boise and found the Highland Games. A kettlebell class came next, and that led her to Olympic weightlifting.
After she turned 60, she looked up the world records for women her age. “I showed them to my coach. I’m like, ‘Are these real? These are numbers that I do all the time,’” she said.
She broke all three of them at a competition in Finland. Later, a lifter from Australia took her snatch record.
At the world masters championships in Athens she opened at 48 kilos, then made 51.
“Coach said 55. I said, let’s go,” she said. “Put 55 on the bar. I lifted it and I got the world record back.”
Photo: via KIVI-TV
She also won her division in Athens. She told KIVI the medal is not her biggest win.
A couple of years ago she crossed the stepping stones at Jump Creek with one grandchild on her shoulder and another on her hip. “And I said, ‘That’s my gold medal,’” she said.
Tom Kudera, a coordinator at the YMCA, said her example shows people they can improve their own health.
She now holds three masters world records, WBAL-TV reported.
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