SETTING HER SIGHTS ON THE PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS, ROWER HELEN GLOVER BLAZES A TRAIL FOR MUMS AS SHE REVEALS SHE’S GOING FOR GOLD
REPORT: EMILY HORAN Helen Glover is an ambassador for Hydrow. To find out more, visit hydrow.com.
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
W hen rower Helen Glover made a sensational comeback at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, she blazed a trail not just for women in sport, but for all mothers, by showing it’s possible to achieve your biggest goals as a mother of three.
And now, the double Olympic champion is planning to make waves once again by going for glory at Paris 2024.
“I want to be 38 years old, going into my next Games, being able to say to the world: ‘I’m the best I have ever been and I’m a mum of three,’” Helen, 36, tells HELLO! in our exclusive interview, one of her first since making her surprise announcement last week.
“I’d love to win a medal. Imagining myself standing on the podium in Paris is what excites me at the moment. One of my motivations is that the children will be able to really be part of it. I’d love to think that they’ll come out and watch in the stands; it would be amazing.”
SUPPORT SQUAD
The athlete shares Logan, four, and three-year-old twins Kit and Bo with husband Steve Backshall, and the Bafta-winning wildlife presenter and naturalist, who turns 50 next month, has been her biggest cheerleader.
“There was a [rowing] trial in November and Steve said to me: ‘I really think you should do it.’ If he wasn’t on board and so invested in and excited by it, it wouldn’t be possible,” Helen says.
After winning gold in the women’s coxless pairs with Heather Stanning first at London 2012, then again at Rio 2016, she took a step back to start her family with Steve.
Her history-making return to competition in Tokyo five years later, when she finished fourth alongside Polly Swann, made Helen the first mum to row in a British Olympic team. She left Tokyo, she says, “feeling that not only have I achieved in sport, but I’ve also done something to make a difference for other women,” and her sights are set even higher for her Paris bid.
“This time, I want to do it at the top of my game. Not to do it with an asterisk – ‘and she’s a mum’ – but to be an elite athlete on my own terms. Being a mum is a super-strength, and I think I can be better than I ever was.
“When I was training, there was nobody I could look at and say: ‘Having childr
