There's been a sea change in high performance sport that's seeing Olympic-class mums take the podiums in Paris Top sports are beginning to twig that female athletes at their peak are also at peak child-bearing age - and the two aren't mutually exclusive. When Martin Cross was rowing for Great Britain 40 years ago, the thought of a mother competing at the Olympics was unheard of - bringing your spouse to training was frowned upon."To be honest, if a woman had had a child the chances were that...
There's been a sea change in high performance sport that's seeing Olympic-class mums take the podiums in Paris
Top sports are beginning to twig that female athletes at their peak are also at peak child-bearing age - and the two aren't mutually exclusive.
When Martin Cross was rowing for Great Britain 40 years ago, the thought of a mother competing at the Olympics was unheard of - bringing your spouse to training was frowned upon.
"To be honest, if a woman had had a child the chances were that it wouldn't be known about," the multiple Olympian tells The Detail.
Now he's among those singing the loudest praises for the "supermums" as a commentator at the Paris games.
"The stories are now known and they're being celebrated."
After the Emma Twigg battle for gold and silver in single sculls, Cross gushed over their hug at the finish line.
"That is so beautiful, so beautiful," he said. "The respect, the fondness, the love between those two athletes." He went on to talk about Twigg's partner Charlotte and their son Tommy born in 2022 watching the race.
Cross has watched as the sport has become much more friendly and understanding. Large rowing nations such as New Zealand are less rigid, while the funding that is now available to athletes means that competing mums get much more financial support.
Of the gold medal-winning double scullers Lucy Spoors and Brooke Francis, he points to their unique bond as mothers.
"They've relished their training time more than they ever have."
Sports journalist Suzanne McFadden says it has taken trailblazers such as Dame Valerie Adams and Silver Fern Ameliaranne Ekenasio to bring about change but it has been a long time coming.
It took coach Dame Noeline Taurua in 2018 to insist that Netball New Zealand embrace mums at the top of the sport. It meant that Ekenasio, who struggled with little or no support with her first baby, was invited to every Silver Ferns camp when she was pregnant with her second child and after the baby was born, even if she couldn't be part of the game physically.
"Even if she couldn't be involved physically, she still felt she was part of the team, she was still paid to be part of the team, she was still part of that whole culture. So netball is only just coming into that realisation as well," says McFadden.
But many top female athletes who are pregnant or who have become new mums still struggle to get the right advice. New Zealand long distance runner Camille French ran the Auckland half marathon when her baby was only four months old…
Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details
