A U.S. wrestler gave Michelle Obama an unexpected lift Friday, when the First Lady visited Team USA’s training center at the University of East London’s Docklands camp.

While Elena Pirozhkova, 25, will be executing rather more forceful moves on her opponents next week, the wrestler’s lift of Michelle Obama was notably gentler – and more polite. In a statement released by USA Wrestling, Pirozhkova revealed:

“Even before she made the rounds I thought I can’t just hug her like everybody else. I hugged her, and then I asked her if I could pick her up. I think she was nervous. I went slow. I just picked her up. I wanted to ask her permission. There was security all around. And she gave it. I will only meet her once. I wanted to do something different.”

Obama was okay with being hoisted up by the wrestler, who stands at 5 feet 5 and is a member of U.S. women’s freestyle team, competing in the 138.75-pound.

Pirozhkova, already a world championship silver medalist, is actually a native of Russia, but moved to the USA with her family when she was just three years old. In a fitting moment, her world champ silver came when she returned to her Russian homeland in 2010.

Fortunately for us and the rest of the world’s media, Clarissa Chun, 105.5-pound teammate of Pirozhkova, snapped and then tweeted a pic of the U.S. wrestler’s lift on Michelle Obama, matter-of-factly captioning it, “Elena picked up the First Lady.”

Elena picked up the First lady twitter.com/ClarissaChun/s…

— Clarissa Chun (@ClarissaChun) July 27, 2012

Chun also got a picture for herself:

The First Lady, showing love for the 808! #hawaiipride twitter.com/ClarissaChun/s…

— Clarissa Chun (@ClarissaChun) July 27, 2012

U.S. Wrestler Gives Michelle Obama A Lift [Pic] is a post from: The Inquisitr