Helen Glover gets back in the boat again: ‘I truly think I can be better than ever’

H elen Glover, the double Olympic rowing champion, has announced her surprise comeback with the aim of making history at the Paris Games next year. If she achieves her ambition Glover, who won gold at London 2012 and in Rio four years later, would be the first British mother of three children to reach an Olympic podium.

The 36-year-old, who has a son aged five and boy and girl twins who are three, told the Guardian: “I want to be an elite athlete and a mum, not an elite athlete despite being a mum. I want to be able to do the two absolutely to the same ability as everybody else, without my being a mum being seen as a negative or leaving an asterisk beside my name. I want to be the very best and I truly think I can be better than ever.”

Glover is also driven by her wider aim to prove that mothers of young children can be as successful in their careers as fathers. While paying tribute to the support of her husband, Steve Backshall, the naturalist and television presenter, Glover says: “There definitely is a wall for women in comparison to men. Women tend to be the primary care-giver, whether they’re working or not, and that’s the case for me. I’m really lucky I have Steve’s support and often he will take time off work to have the children. But it’s definitely different for men and women. I’m not taking anything away from men or claiming they don’t have to juggle emotionally and physically to be successful in work and good dads as well.

“But the more women I speak to, whether it’s in business or other fields, the more everyone says the same thing. Somebody has to do it first. I’m happy to be the first person to have tried this [in an Olympic context] and to be almost frustrated by the lessons we didn’t learn last time.