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It sounds like Helen Glover will give us permission to shoot her if she ends up rowing at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The 38-year-old won silver in the women’s four to add to her two golds from previous Games and become the first British mum-of-three to win an Olympic medal in any sport. After the women’s quad bested the Netherlands in a thrilling sprint finish, a double over the Dutch proved just beyond the four who missed out on gold by 0.18 seconds.
Glover wasn’t as emphatic as Sir Steve Redgrave in his famous proclamation after winning a fourth gold at Atlanta 1996 that “anyone who sees me go anywhere near a boat again, ever, you’ve got my permission to shoot me” (he was back rowing four months later and won a fifth gold at Sydney 2000 of course...) – but she certainly strongly hinted she would now be hanging up her oars.
Crewmates Samantha Redgrave, Esme Booth and Rebecca Shorten appear to have made up their minds as to whether Glover will aim for a fourth Games and their opinion doesn’t seem to exactly tally with that of the woman herself.
“Half the team think I’ll carry on,” said Glover. “I don’t plan to carry on.
“I guess I’ve just been focused on crossing the finish line and we’ll see. Right now, I just want to spend time with my family and enjoy being mum, not really thinking about rowing, and taking my time to kind of decompress from the Olympics.”
Rowing events at LA 2028 will be 500 metres shorter than the traditional 2000m but it sounds like not even that will be able to pique Glover’s interest.
The best chance of seeing her in California could be in beach sprints, a discipline that will debut in four years’ time. Beach sprints incorporate a sprint in the sand and rowing in the open ocean near the shore. Glover took part in the 2022 World Rowing Beach Sprint Finals, staged in Wales.
“I am from Cornwall; I do live by the coast!” joked Glover. “It’s really exciting that beach sprints are being included. I enjoyed beach sprints, but it’s definitely not something I’m eyeing up too seriously.”
In Tokyo, Glover blazed a trail as the first mother to compete for Team GB in rowing at the Olympics. The legacy of that achievement was borne out in the fact that two British mothers reached the podium inside an hour on one Vaires-sur-Marne morning.
Mathilda Hodgkins-Byrne, who gave birth to son Freddie in 2022, made history with bronze in the women’s double sculls.
The 29-year-old trained throughout her pregnancy, undergoing an hour of low-level cardio work every day, and got back in the boat seven months after childbirth.
Jumping into the double with Rebecca Wilde, they squeaked into the Games as the 13th and final qualifier and rowed the final like a crew with nothing to lose.
“Helen and I have definitely tried to show it’s possible,” said Hodgkins-Byrne. “Having a child shouldn’t be the end of your career and hopefully this inspires more mums to do it. All of us are starting to prove that and the support around us is showing that it is possible.”
Glover has had a number of conversations with team-mates who are now considering starting a family and then returning to rowing.
“I feel like I worked so hard in the Tokyo year to break into the team as a mum, and I think now we’re reaping the rewards for that hard work,” said Glover, who is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – which has been vital on their pathway to the Paris 2024 Games.
“Rowing came second to a lot of the battles I had to fight throughout that year and now those battles are fought, hopefully every single mum that comes back can have a journey based on performance, rather than proving that mums can do it.
“I think normalising (motherhood) is really important. I think that sport is a massive reflection on society, and I think that to show that you can come back to a hobby, sport, to show that you can come back and excel, not despite having children, but because you have children.
“I think it’s a message to society to say there is space, there should be openness, there should be encouragement for women to come back and do whatever they want to do when they’ve had kids.”
With more than £30m a week raised for Good Causes, including vital funding into elite and grassroots sport, National Lottery players support our Olympic and Paralympic athletes to live their dreams and make the nation proud, as well as providing more opportunities for people to take part in sport. To find out more visit: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk
