Meet the Team GB Mum squad gunning for glory

They have a breastfeeding room at their Paris HQ, plus a creche and their own WhatsApp group to help them deliver the goods...

FOR the first time at an Olympic Games, the athletes’ village will contain a creche. And no nation will be putting it to better use in Paris than Great Britain, whose 327-strong squad includes a record number of mothers.

Such is the changing face of Team GB, a private breastfeeding room and play area have been added to their bespoke performance lodge in the French capital. A WhatsApp group has also been set up for sporting supermums to share their parenting and training tips.

Here, Mail Sport meets eight of our Olympic mothers and the children who will be cheering them on.

1 MATHILDA HODGKINS-BYRNE, 29, ROWING

After giving birth to Freddie in July 2022, Hodgkins-Byrne set up a crowdfunding page to support her first Olympic cycle as a mum, dramatically taking the final qualifying place for Paris in the double sculls. She rowed alongside her younger sister Charlotte in the quadruple sculls in Tokyo but failed to reach the final.

I AM part of the WhatsApp group of mums from all different sports. It’s been really great to hear from other athletes and go through this journey together. It has definitely helped me get to Paris.

I was lucky I had a very easy pregnancy. Even at 40 weeks plus six days, I swam 2k and was doing weights. Freddie was about six months old when I started rowing again. I trained pretty much remotely at the start of last year, then I joined back with the team full-time last September.

Since coming back, the support I have received has been incredible. Freddie has come to training camps with me. He is seen as part of the team now! To bring him, I had to pay for my mum, which was costing more than £2,000 per training camp, so the GoFundMe page was critical to being able to take them with me.

Freddie is going to be there in Paris. I will be less stressed and less upset than if he wasn’t. The European Championships in Szeged in April was the first time I left him behind and I noticed how much I missed him.

Knowing I am going to see him in 45 minutes, not a day or so, makes a huge difference.

2 AMBER RUTTER, 26, SHOOTING

The former world No 1 skeet shooter will go for gold in Paris just three months after having son Tommy. Rutter finished sixth in Rio aged 18, but missed the Games in Tokyo after testing positive for Covid the night before she was due to fly.

I WAS always confident Paris would be possible for me as long as the birth went smoothly and, thankfully, it did. I was back shooting after four weeks and I feel like I could have shot sooner. Luckily, shooting isn’t the most physical sport, it’s more mental.

Since getting back in, I haven’t felt any different. It has been like I never stopped. My life is a bit chaotic but we’re making it work.

I am lucky Tommy is quite an easy baby. He is making my life a lot easier as we navigate this busy time. Sleep is the only thing I have been struggling with, but thankfully he has just started sleeping through, so training is going even better than it was!

As much as I would love Tommy to be there cheering me on, he is going to stay at home. If he cries, my focus would be directly on him. That distraction would be too much to deal with. He is going to be well looked after.

We have a list of people dying to have him. When I am there, I am there to do a job, to win. But I have a new reason for doing it all now. Ultimately, coming home to him is the prize.

3 BIANCA WILLIAMS, 30, ATHLETICS

Williams is mother to four-yearold boy Zuri. The London sprinter, who is coached by Linford Christie, will run in the 200 metres at her first Olympics and is also part of Britain’s 4x100m relay squad.

I WAS at home with Zuri when I got the call to say I had been selected for the Olympics and I burst into tears. When

I told him, he was like, “What’s the Olympics? Why do you want to do that?”

Being a mum and being able to juggle athletics and make the Olympics is huge. It is something I will cherish for ever. I didn’t know where life was going to take me once I had Zuri. I didn’t even know if I wanted to continue in the sport. But having him has given me a new lease of life.

When I fell pregnant, I had people saying, “Bianca won’t be the same. She won’t get back to the elite level”. But I ran a personal best last year after nine years, so they can eat their words.

Most Saturdays, Zuri is at the track with us. He will ride around the track on his little bike, which is cute. He is like everyone’s child there. My whole group looks out for him. He will sit with them and eat lunch. His bond with Linford is really nice. He calls him Uncle Linford.

It will be really nice to see him after I run in Paris. Even if I have a bad day, he always says I have done really well.

4 CHARLOTTE DUJARDIN, 39, EQUESTRIAN

The dressage star is Britain’s joint most decorated female Olympian with six medals (three golds). This is her fourth Games but first as a mum, having had Isabella in March last year.

PEOPLE say it’s the end of your career to have kids, but we are showing it isn’t. I was back on the horse six weeks after having Isabella and competing at nine. I never planned anything. It was about how I felt and I felt ready.

I always make sure Isabella is a part of it. I am lucky she wants to be around horses and loves riding. It is scary how much of a natural she is. If she takes it up, that would be great. I won’t push her, but if she wants to, I will

support her. She can take over from Mummy. It will be very special riding in front of her in Paris. Having her there to support me is a fantastic feeling. I want to make her proud.

I would love to win a medal in the individual and team events, but now I am a mum it makes you realise there is much more to life. If I win, it is amazing, but if I lose, I now think, “There is always another day”.

5 HELEN GLOVER, 38, ROWING

Glover won gold in the women’s coxless pair in 2012 and 2016. She stopped to have son Logan in July 2018, then twins Kit and Bo in January 2020, but made a shock return ahead of Tokyo 2020, where she finished fourth. She will row in the four for the first time in Paris.

I GET messages from women about wanting to come back after having children. Even some of my team-mates pick my brains about it. It is amazing to be inspiring other people to realise it is even a possibility. It is becoming the Games of the mums!

My non-negotiable with training is that I finish by 3pm, so I do the pick-up from school and nursery. Sometimes that means doing sessions after the kids have gone to bed or doing them on my own at home, but it’s the only way of making it work and feeling I am not dropping the ball as a mum, which is the most important job.

It’s not how I would necessarily choose to do my training as the perfect athlete, but I am trying to balance being the best athlete and the best mum.

It does feel hard some days, but then you get these moments where you go out and race and it’s all falling into place, or you see the kids after training and they understand it and ask questions about it.

A huge part of coming back was to have my children there in Paris. This is a moment they will be part of and it will be with them for the rest of their lives, which is really special.

6 KATY MARCHANT, 31, CYCLING

The track cyclist from Leeds won an Olympic bronze in the sprint in Rio, then finished sixth in Tokyo, after which she had her son Arthur in June 2022. Marchant will compete in the team sprint and keirin in Paris as one of Team GB’s three cycling mums, with Elinor Barker and Lizzie Deignan also in the squad.

WHEN I started cycling, I thought having a baby would be something I did at the end of my career. But the narrative has changed around making it a part of your career.

When I found out I was pregnant, I instantly knew I wanted to go to Paris. I trained alongside Jess Ennis-Hill when I was a heptathlete and we message quite regularly. When I fell pregnant, she was one of the first people I messaged to say, “Help! What do I do?!”. It was really nice to have her support.

Physically, I have found it OK. But dealing with the mum guilt when I have to go away is hard. It’s been a rollercoaster but one I’ve managed to juggle thanks to the support of my family.

I never thought I’d be able to survive on fewer than eight hours’ sleep, but you start to realise that maybe we were a bit precious prior to having a baby. I have realised I am way more capable than I thought I was. I don’t know whether it’s that mum strength, but I feel better than ever and am going faster than I’ve ever gone.

To be able to look up to the stands and see Arthur there will be a dream. It is something that motivates me more than ever. Everyone who rides a bike to him is ‘Mummy’, so as long as somebody wins, Arthur will be excited!

7 CHARLEY DAVISON, 30, BOXING

The Lowestoft fighter will be competing in her second Games in the bantamweight division after losing in the last 16 in Tokyo. She has three children: Arnell, 12, Armani, 10, and Amir, eight.

I REMEMBER watching the 2012 Olympics with Arnell as a newborn and I could feel I still had the boxing bug. After that, I went to the gym just to get my weight down, and then it turned serious.

I like being called ‘The Boxing Mum’ because it puts it out there for other young females that you can still fulfil your dreams even if you have children.

It has been my dream since I was eight to win an Olympic medal. My children understand what I am doing, but it would mean more to have the medal to show them and say, “This is what Mummy was working for, this is why I sacrificed so much”.

My coach will always mention the children in the build-up to me going into the ring. He will say, “Remember why you are doing it, there are three reasons,” and that drives me. I am doing this to hopefully better their future.

I wouldn’t be able to do this without my partner Bruce. He has given up work to be at home full-time looking after the children so I can go to train in Sheffield every week. He is coming to Paris with my eldest two. To have my family there screaming my name, it will be mad.

8 ROS CANTER, 38, EQUESTRIAN

Canter gave birth to daughter Ziggy in July 2019, 10 months after becoming world eventing champion. The Lincolnshire rider will be making her Olympic debut after missing out on the team for Tokyo, when she travelled as a reserve.

IT takes an army to be a successful event rider and an even bigger army to do it as a mother. My husband Chris picks up the slack on a regular basis and my parents often do the school runs. When horses are involved, plans change very regularly so it’s hard to stick to a routine. Organised chaos is probably the best way to describe it!

I often creep out at 5am to go to the gym. A couple of months ago, Ziggy woke up and asked why I was leaving again. So I had a sit-down with her and explained what the Olympics were and why I was trying to get there. Ever since, she has been great and is getting into the Olympic spirit.

She is going to stay at home while I am in Paris. It will be intense there and I have a serious job to do. It will be better that she has fun with her cousins at home while I get to work.