Cheryl Haworth was born on April 19th, 1983 in Savannah, Georgia, USA. Haworth began her weightlifting career in 1996 at the age of 13 and started traveling internationally for competition at 14. She began breaking American Records at 15, Pan-American Records when she was 16 and still holds the snatch American Record of 128kgs. Haworth is still credited with a Youth World Record, also in the snatch, of 125kgs made at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 when she was 17 years old.

Until the Rio 2016 Olympics, Cheryl had remained the last American to win an Olympic weightlifting medal (Bronze, 2000 Sydney) and still is the last American to win a medal at the World Championships (Bronze, Doha, Qatar). Cheryl is a Goodwill Games Champion, Pan American Champion, two-time Junior Worlds Champion and competed in the Olympics three times. In 2004 Athens, Haworth earned 6th overall and came up with a fourth-place finish in 2008 Beijing. Cheryl was also the national champion from 1998-2008, eleven times consecutively. She has been a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Live! with Regis and Kathy Lee (breaking the American Record Clean and Jerk live on television) interviewed by Tom Brokaw, Bob Costas, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer and others. Cheryl has been photographed by Annie Leibowitz, Howard Schatz and Mary Ellen Mark, to name a few and has appeared in numerous books, magazines, newspapers and other publications.

Cheryl is presently a weightlifting coach in Athens, Ga. running Haworth Weightlifting (@haworthweightlifting), teaching seminars, coaching clinics and traveling in an effort to promote the sport of Olympic weightlifting.