Should she win in Moscow - and Campbell has the highest entry total of 271 kilograms in a field of nine - Britain will have two European champions for the first time since women started competing in 1988 and their best continental medal haul in 73 years.

Campbell needs only to make a total to join Sarah Davies and Zoe Smith as qualifiers for the delayed Tokyo Olympic Games and it is possible that Emily Godley, winner of the 81kg gold on Wednesday, could join them if everything goes her way.

Whether three or four, it is the best Olympic qualifying performance by Britain in decades.

It is a truly remarkable success story for a sport that lost its state funding support after Rio 2016 and has endured year after year of bad news.

The gloom descended a few months after Rio 2016 when Ashley Metcalfe, chief executive of British Weight Lifting (BWL), was "shocked and devastated" to learn that weightlifting was one of the 11 Olympic and Paralympic sports being cut from UK Sport’s £345 million ($473 million/€397 million) funding package for Tokyo.

That was followed six months later by a failed appeal against the cuts, and in December 2017 there was more bad news when Sonny Webster was banned for four years after testing positive for ostarine.

Webster was Britain’s top male lifter and had competed in Rio, where his only team mate was Rebekah Tiler, the best young weightlifter Britain had produced in years.

Tiler was 17 when she finished 10^th in the 69kg category in Rio, and she won silver medals at the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Youth and World Junior Championships.

But there was another blow for BWL in 2018 when Tiler quit the sport, largely as a result of the funding cuts.

It might have been even worse in 2019, far worse, because that is when Davies had serious doubts about continuing in the sport.

"My life has changed exponentially since qualifying started in 2018," Davies told insidethegames after her six-from-six second place in the 64kg in Moscow.

"In the summer of 2019, just before Thailand [World Championships], my long-term relationship broke down.

"It had been built pretty much on weightlifting, and it made me question my place in the sport.

"There were times when I thought about not doing weightlifting any more, pulling myself out of Olympic qualification.

"But friends and family kept me in the game and kept me focused, and now it feels as if I’ve found myself through the sport.

"I can’t thank them enough - friends, family and my coaches Dave Sawyer and Cyril Martin."

Now Davies is not only on her way to Tokyo after a career-best performance in Moscow, she is also chair of the IWF Athletes' Commission - another unpaid and stressful role at a time of crisis for the sport.

Sawyer, who has worked with the British team in Moscow alongside Andy Callard and Stuart Martin, persuaded Davies to move to his Atlas Gym in Alfreton in Derbyshire soon after she had doubts about her future.

"I feared that she would miss the Olympic Games," said Sawyer, who took up coaching when he was still a teenager.

"I thought her numbers could improve with some technical changes, and she’s been such a good listener and a really phenomenal trainer.

"It's been a tough time emotionally for Sarah, and she’s been carrying quite a bad knee injury too.

"As for the Athletes' Commission work, I told her to keep her mind clear for training, manage her time and try not to let it affect her too much when she was out of the meetings.

"She’s done that really well.

"It’s incredible what they’ve done, all of them.

"They all want to perform here and in Tokyo and put their names out there to show that they deserve funding."

Davies is a close friend and Atlas Gym training partner of Campbell, who has also improved considerably after giving up her job to focus on qualifying for Tokyo.

"Emily’s had to look to her parents for support, and obviously it’s gone on longer than planned because of the postponement [of Tokyo 2020]," said Sawyer.

Davies said she had been supported and motivated by Campbell.

"To have someone training with you who has the same goals, to push you along, is definitely helpful," she said.

"Before, I was just training on my own and getting on with it.

"It’s nice to have a friend to suffer in silence with when you’re grinding out those sessions you don’t necessarily want to be there for, especially during lockdown.

"The atmosphere in the whole team is very good – there were a lot of emotions when Emily [Godley] won.

"She’s had an interesting 12 months too, a lot of personal issues, and for her to get out there and do that was a big moment."

Smith, well placed at 59kg in the Olympic rankings, was sixth in that category in Moscow.

The remarkable turnaround in fortunes for Britain has been inspired by the women, while the men's team has not performed well.

There are plans to promote and recruit more male lifters but one problem, Sawyer said, was that doping had put so many nations on a level that seems unattainable to potential newcomers.

"We hear that attitude of 'How can I compete against this?' but I tell them that if you work on your technique, get a good training programme, a good diet you can do well," said sawyer.

Metcalfe will be looking forward to today’s competition and hoping he has more evidence to take to UK Sport for a restoration of funding.

"We need to thank them (UK Sport) because they have managed to find some money to help key lifters trying to qualify for Tokyo, called aspirational funding," he said.

"For one competition they had to pay their own way but since then we’ve managed to find a way.

"UK Sport’s help has given our key athletes a chance to prepare properly for Olympic qualification.

"From an overall position it’s a phenomenal achievement to have three, maybe four females on the verge of going to Tokyo.

"It’s testament to the effort they have put in, and to the support they’ve had from their own coaches.

"It has been an unbelievable week so far.

"It’s a big day for Emily on Sunday - let’s hope we have a good finish."