Sport has to fit in with my family life...

Double Olympic champion rower and mum-of-three Helen Glover opens up to SARA KEENAN about how her training has changed and her parenting non-negotiables

- SARA KEENAN

FAMILY VALUES: Helen with family including husband Steve Backshall and their children Logan, Kit and Willow after winning silver at the 2024 Paris Olympics

HAVING children made double Olympic gold medal rower Helen Glover OBE realise that “sport is so much bigger than the moment you cross the line on one race”.

Although she didn’t pick up rowing until the age of 21, sport was always her passion growing up, she says.

“It was definitely my kind of identity of what I enjoyed and who I was, but I never imagined it becoming my career,” the 39-year-old mum-of-three says.

She says her Olympic training changed after having her children - Logan, now aged seven, and five-year-old twins Kit and Willow.

“When I was training in my 20s for my first two Olympics, I didn’t have time for even friends and family,” says Helen, who has been married to explorer, presenter and writer Steve Backshall since 2016 - the year she won gold at the Rio Games.

She'd won her first Olympic gold at the London Games in 2012 and met Steve two years later at a Sport Relief event.

“My world revolved around results and that one day. I was committed to winning Olympic gold,” she admits. “The way I see the world and sport now is this much bigger picture of where it fits into my life, family, and what's important.”

When it comes to finding balance as a mum and training for the Olympics, she says she had certain non-negotiables.