Day 4198:Olympic Mom and Tournament in two days.

 

 

"Lies"; junk and digital collage.

 

 

  

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Click here: Jeff Lorber, By My Side

 

  

 

 

2GN2S

For Helen Glover, motherhood means that ‘every inch of happiness’ doesn’t rest on Olympic success

When she posted a photo of her hand on Instagram – bloodied and blistered with pale, dead skin hanging limply from a cut – it offered a gruesome snapshot of what British rower Helen Glover is putting her body through ahead of this year’s Olympic Games.

The physical toll of training for the Olympics.

 

 

The photo was taken while Glover was midway through a training camp in Portugal – a brutal, friction-induced side effect of the hours she has spent on the water or on a rowing machine. 

How Glover dealt deal with her battered hand was sometimes by taping the fingers, she explained, and other times by just gritting the teeth. But these kinds of ailments are just one consequence of training for what will be her fourth Olympics.

Glover (left) competes in the women's pair event with Polly Swann at the Tokyo Olympics.

“The hardest bit is the day-to-day of being exhausted, but getting out of bed and going training again,” the 37-year-old Glover says. “Physically, it’s kind of like Groundhog Day: every day getting up knowing you’re going to do it again.”

Glover is an Olympic veteran, a two-time gold medalist at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics in London and Rio. However, her fourth-placed finish in Tokyo three years ago was arguably just as impressive given her abbreviated preparation for the Games.

It was January 2021, a year after giving birth to twins and four years after announcing her retirement from the sport, when Glover embarked on a bold plan to compete at the Olympics with just six months of serious training under her belt.

That she even got to the starting line, let alone finished marginally outside the medal places, was testament to a superhuman act of juggling childcare with a demanding training schedule.

Glover announced her second retirement after Tokyo only to once again have a change of heart. Preparation is more straightforward this time around, particularly having acquired so much more racing experience.

Glover prepares to compete at GB Rowing Trials last year.

Glover has a five-year-old and three-year-old twins and is now accustomed to balancing motherhood with her rowing schedule. She spends more time training at home than her teammates and is a full-time athlete with the help of funding from the National Lottery – a long-time sponsor of Great Britain’s Olympic team.

Glover has three world and European titles on top of her two Olympic gold medals, becoming a mother has altered her outlook on her rowing career. “When I was in my 20s and I was aiming for London and for Rio, it almost seemed like everything – every inch of happiness – was going to depend on the result and the success that I got at those Games,” she says.

“I think the perspective definitely shifts when you become a parent, and I could have the worst day at training, but I get back and if my kids are happy, then I’m happy.

read the full story, here

 

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"Gaman" by Demura Sensei

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

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