Anna Kessel
Acouple of weeks ago, an ultramarathon runner called Lowri Morgan tweeted me her story of being a mother. Each month, to keep up her mileage alongside a full-time job, she puts her son to bed, drives to the mountains and runs 60 miles through the night to be home in time for the school run. She breaks up the journey with micro-naps, of three to five minutes, and goes to bed an hour earlier for the rest of the week to catch up on sleep.
Reading Lowri’s tweet, I was awestruck. When I had my first child in 2011, it felt pretty daunting. I didn’t see many other women doing my job as a sports writer, let alone mothers doing it. How did anyone manage with childcare? With long hours? With breastfeeding? With lack of sleep? All too often, combining work with motherhood seemed impossible in our industry.
So it has been heartening to see a recent and highly visible upsurge in mothers in sport – from Sydney Leroux’s comeback 93 days postpartum, to the mums in track and field dominating the headlines at the recent athletics World Championships, or 44-year-old gymnast Oksana Chusovitina qualifying for the Tokyo Olympic Games 19 years after having her son. Off the field of play, too, mothers are making waves, Jeanette Kwakye covering the World Championships for the BBC in Doha, or Mims Davies’s recent tenure as sports minister.
I once listened to a very senior woman in sport tell the BBC that it was impossible to be an elite sports coach and a mother. In 2019, it still seems much harder than it should be – Tracey Neville’s high-profile departure from her role as England netball coach to focus on having a family being just one example. But thank goodness we are, at least, starting to talk about the issues around motherhood, health and careers. The conversations are becoming more nuanced, more diverse, taboo-busting and wide-ranging.
Here at TWS we are excited to share these thought-provoking stories of remarkable women and mothers, courageously forging their own paths in sport.