‘SUPER MOMS’ IN TOKYO
From nine-time Olympics medal winner Allyson Felix, who will be at the Tokyo Games for the first time as a mother, to our own MC Mary Kom, a mother of four, this Olympics will feature some of the world's greatest super moms doing two full-time duties with
TENNIS SANIA MIRZA, 34
Mirza and husband, Pakistan cricketer Shoaib Malik, became parents in Oct 2018, a year after she was sidelined from tennis due to a knee injury. But she was far from done with tennis. Managing to lose 26kg in four months, the six-time Grand Slam champion came back in January last year. And boom! She won her first event on return at Hobart International, partnering Nadiia Kichenok. Mirza has since been part of the Indian team that earned a maiden qualification for the Billie Jean King Cup World Group play-offs and has played a couple of Grand Slams, with two-year-old Izhaan as her travel companion.
BOXING MARY KOM, 38
When Mary Kom won bronze at the 2012 London Olympics, she was a mother to twins. In Tokyo, she will enter the ring as a mother of four, welcoming a third son in 2013 before she and her husband Karung Onkholer adopted daughter, Neivar Merilyn, in 2018. The same year, Mary Kom won her sixth World Championships, in New Delhi. At the 2019 edition in Russia, a bronze took Mary Kom past Cuban great Felix Savon with a record eighth Worlds medal. What will Tokyo have in story for the magnificent mother?
TRACK AND FIELD SHELLY-ANN FRASER-PRYCE, 34
A year after settling for the 100m bronze at Rio Olympics, Fraser-Pryce announced her pregnancy, and in August 2017 gave birth to baby boy Zyon the day after the 2017 World Championships ended in London where she could not defend her title. It took the
Jamaican all of 10 weeks to hit the training ground again, reclaiming the
100m gold at the 2019 Doha
Worlds with a timing of 10.71s.
Once fierce rivals on the track,
Fraser-Pryce and Felix have since bonded over motherhood and tales of returning to running stronger and hungrier.
FOOTBALL ALEX MORGAN, 32
Had the Tokyo Olympics been held on time, Alex Morgan would have had less than three months between becoming a first-time mother and representing USA in football. The Games were pushed back, giving the 31-year-old some extra moments to cherish with her daughter Charlie, who was born in May last year. In September, though, the London Games gold medallist and two-time FIFA World Cup winner signed up to play for Tottenham in the Women's Super League. "2020 is the year of the unexpected, but next up—the first stamp on Charlie's passport," Morgan wrote on Instagram to announce the move. Next up—Tokyo.
TRACK AND FIELD ALLYSON FELIX, 35
One of the most endearing sights from the women's 400m final of the US Olympic trials—where Allyson Felix sealed her 5th Olympic berth—was Felix introducing her daughter, Camryn, to Demetrius, the son of Quanera Hayes who won the event. “Guys, we’re going to Tokyo,” Felix told the two-year-olds. Hayes added: "Can you say super mommies?" Guess we all can. Felix, 35, has won nine medals in four Olympics, and Tokyo will be her first as a mother. There were complications during Camryn’s birth in Nov
2018 and both the mother and daughter remained in hospital fighting for their lives. In Tokyo, Felix will fight for gold.
MARATHON ALIPHINE TULIAMUK, 32
The Kenyan-born American would’ve thought things were going as per script when she won the US Olympic trials in February last year: seal the Olympic spot, compete in Tokyo, then have a baby. The pandemic shook the order. So Tuliamuk decided to change her family planning timeline. She announced her pregnancy in December 2020 and gave birth to daughter Zoe in January. “(My daughter) will be able to say, ‘My mom ran a marathon at the Olympics six-and-a-half months after having me’,” she said.
GYMNASTICS OKSANA CHUSOVITINA, 46
To put her record 8th Olympics appearance in perspective, her son Alisher, born in 1999, is two years younger than Simone Biles. At 46, Chusovitina will be the oldest gymnast ever in an Olympics, having represented the USSR, Germany and now Uzbekistan. She moved to Germany after her son was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002. Treatment was expensive, compelling her to compete. Alisher was declared cancer-free in 2008, the same year that she won her first Olympic medal, a silver on the vault in Beijing.