Glover hopes OBE shows women 'don't have to be pigeon-holed by being a parent'

Helen Glover (second left) after the GB Women’s Four crew won silver in Paris. Photo: Sam Mellish Team GB

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Two of the area’s most prominent rowers have been recognised in the New Year's Honours list with two-time Olympic gold medallist Helen Glover receiving an OBE and Emily Craig receiving an MBE for their services to the sport.

Both were medal winners at this summer's Paris Olympics with Glover claiming silver after being agonisingly pipped for a third gold medal as part of the GB women’s four crew.

While Maidenhead-based Craig and her rowing partner Imogen Grant executed almost the perfect race to take gold in the final of the Lightweight Women's double sculls (LW2X). Both have been awarded an MBE.  

In an interview with the BBC, Cookham-based Glover said she hoped her career would inspire other mums to continue achieving and aspiring after giving birth.

For many, becoming a mum, brings an end to their sporting careers, but Glover and several other Team GB athletes have shown that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

Glover, now 38, won gold in the women's pairs at London 2012 and Rio 2016 alongside Heather Stanning and went on to make history in 2021 when she became the first mother to compete for Team GB in rowing at the Tokyo Games.

Having initially retired from the sport in 2016 and becoming a mother-of-three, Glover returned to competitive action alongside Polly Swann in the women's pairs at Tokyo, finishing just outside of the medals in fourth place. However, she continued training into the next Olympic cycle and returned to the podium with the women's fours team in Paris this summer.

She said she hoped her OBE showed others they do not need to be 'pigeon-holed by being a parent' and added that she was 'really chuffed' with the honour.

"London and Rio for me was this selfish ambition project, but since then, through Tokyo and Paris, I feel like I've gained so much more from what I've given back," she said.

"I really want to champion mums and never being pigeon-holed by being a parent -so for me that's been the biggest thing I want to give back through sport.”

Marlow-based Dame Katherine Grainger also spoke to Radio 4's Today programme about the issue this morning.

Grainger is to become the first female chair of the British Olympic Association (BOA) in its 119-year history when she moves into the role in early 2025.

She said: “One of the big things I was really proud to see in Paris was we had nine different mums competing across eight different sports producing six different medals.

“And you think, the shifts that policies can make around maternity cover. Athletes who don’t feel that becoming a parent means their career has stopped. We’ve seen that in other worlds and now we’re seeing it in sport. So, sport has caught up there.

“There are things that are happening all the time that I think we should be really optimistic but it’s not taking the foot off the gas. We still need to go forward.”

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Emily Craig and Imogen Grant's performance in the final of the women's double sculls at Paris 2024 was as close to perfection as you can get in rowing, with the pair showing excellent synchronicity to race away from their rivals.

By 500m, they had already established a lead of 0.12 seconds over Romania and by half-way this had been pushed out to nearly a second. Half a length up on their closest rivals they continued to pull away and crossed the finish nearly a full boat's length ahead to claim one of Team GB's most dominant rowing gold medals.

The race was the last hurrah for lightweight rowing at the Olympics, meaning Emily and Imogen will be the last Olympic Champions in their boat class.

Since missing out on gold in Tokyo 2020 by just 0.5 seconds, and on bronze by a tiny 0.01 seconds, they had won two World and European titles, remaining unbeaten throughout the Paris cycle so expectations were high heading into the summer.

Reflecting on their impressive performance, Craig said: “That was probably the quickest race of our lives and it kind of just happened in a flash. There’s so much muscle memory, the race plan over the past few years has kind of become gospel and speaks to how much we believe in it and how process driven we are that we came out and we lived that process until the end and got the result we wanted.

“There has been pressure but also confidence. Today we knew we didn’t have to go out and pull something new out of thin air, we just had to race the race plan that we have and that’s what saw us over the line first. It’s a bit of a blur to be honest.”