Comeback queen Helen Glover leads Team GB’s medal charge in Tokyo – just like she did at London 2012 – as British rower bids for a remarkable gold with Polly Swann in the pair after having THREE children since last Olympics
Helen Glover was a saviour of our very brief Olympic despondency that famous summer nine years ago, claiming Great Britain’s first gold of the London 2012 bonanza. And so the medal rush began.
Now, aged 35, Glover is attempting something even more remarkable than the feat she accomplished with Heather Stanning.
The two-time Olympic champion took nearly four years out from the sport to start a family following Rio 2016 and only decided to return to competition at the start of the year, seven months away from Tokyo.
Helen Glover is competing in the Olympics after taking nearly four years out to start a family
Glover (left) got the gold medal ball rolling for Team GB at the home London 2012 Olympics
She gave birth to a son, Logan, in July 2018 and twins, Kit and Willow, in January 2020.
Yet despite those life-changing events she is the leading light of the 45-strong rowing squad. She partners Polly Swann in the pair, almost certainly assured of safe navigation through the heats.
The pandemic saved her career, for without the one-year delay she would not be in Japan.
Glover has given birth to three children – Logan (right) and twins Kit and Willow – since 2018
The so-called ‘mother of all comebacks’ began with Glover working her three-times-a-day schedule around her kids’ sleeps. So successful has her return been that she and Swann won European gold in April.
Glover said: ‘It’s phenomenal what the body can do. I realised I had been such a princess in 2012 and 2016.
‘Back then if I got seven hours’ sleep I would put that down as a really bad night. Then I spent the next three years dreaming of that kind of sleep.’
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