How new mum Val keeps her GC focus
I didn’t know the job description that came with it [having a baby and training for the Games], but bloody hell, it’s hard.
Valerie Adams
Noma Price will not win a gold medal at April’s Commonwealth Games but she deserves one.
Dame Valerie Adams’ mother-inlaw has taken a term’s leave from her job as a teacher aide at Sutton Park School in Mangere East to help look after granddaughter Kimoana.
That sacrifice enables her daughterin-law to train towards a fourth consecutive shot put title at this year’s edition of the event on the Gold Coast.
Adams first represented New Zealand at a Commonwealth Games as a 17-year-old in Manchester 2002, when she secured silver. A hat-trick of victories followed in Melbourne, Delhi and Glasgow.
This build-up has taken on a new dimension after Adams and husband Gabriel celebrated the birth of Kimoana, their first child, in October.
A military-like routine has since evolved in the Adams-Price household.
“Kimoana wakes up about 5am,” Adams says. “My mother-in-law arrives about 7.30am, and as soon as she turns up, I’m out the door.
“I’m basically at the Millennium [Institute] the whole day training. In between times, I go to pump [breast milk]. I keep up that routine, then go home with a sack of milk in my training bag.
“Once I’m home, it’s athlete-hat off, Mum-hat on, put the milk in the fridge and she [Kimoana] doesn’t know anything that’s happened except that ‘Mum’s here’ and we continue with our day.”
Adams has paid tribute to her mother-in-law’s commitment as she chases her “hardest earned” Commonwealth gold.
“I couldn’t have done it without ‘Mum’.
“It’s a massive call for her, but not a hard call. We asked and she accepted. This wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. “Childcare is a hard thing to suss out, and I don’t think I could let anybody [else] look after my child. “I would kill for my child. I didn’t know I had that potential, but I openly admit it. I have so much love for this human being. It’s beyond this world and something I’ve never felt in my entire life.”
If pedigree is any gauge, Adams should win a fifth medal in as many Games.
The best Commonwealth shot putter last year was Jamaica’s Danniel Thomas-Dodd with 19.15m at Eugene, Oregon, in June.
Apart from an injury-plagued and rehabilitation-heavy 2015, the last year Adams failed to pass that mark was 2003.
Thomas-Dodd improved her indoor record to 18.46m last month.
Adams remains assured by her own preparation.
“Let’s just say I’ve broken some rules and not really listened to people advising me,” she quips.
“I guess I did what worked for me at the time. I ended up having a C-section [Caesarian birth], so that obviously took a bit longer [to recover], but within six weeks, I was back in the gym doing bits and bobs.
“Competing at the Commonwealth Games was always in the back of my mind, but it was a gamble. I didn’t know how I would be with the baby, how my body was going to be, or how I would sleep.”
She appreciates how tough life is for mums returning to the workplace just months after giving birth.
“I didn’t know the job description that came with it, but bloody hell, it’s hard,” Adams says.