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Team GB rower Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne said becoming a mother has “taken the enormity” out of competition as she prepares to take part in her first Olympics since giving birth to her son.
The 29-year-old, who finished seventh in the women’s quadruple sculls in Tokyo three years ago, will compete in Paris as part of the double sculls alongside Becky Wilde, with son Freddie set to join her in Paris.
Having trained throughout her pregnancy, undergoing an hour of low-level cardio work every day, Freddie was born in 2022, before she went on to make sure of her place at the Games by finishing second in the final qualification regatta in Switzerland in May of this year.
And despite earning herself a prized second shot at a medal having fallen short at the delayed 2020 Games, she is grateful for the fresh perspective that motherhood has brought to her relationship with competition.
“It’s a balance,” she told the PA news agency. “Going into qualifiers, rowing was going to have to take priority. But equally I knew that whatever happened, I was always going to have a life outside of rowing. That removed the enormity of the competition. It removed some of the stress.
“It’s very easy to think when you go to qualifiers that if you don’t get the result you want, your career is over. Whereas I knew the other part of me was always going to carry on.
“Equally, when I’m rowing it’s the only time someone isn’t going to come and ask me for a meal or want a nappy changing. I can think of exactly what I need to do and how I can make myself better.
“I’m also a different athlete racing. I’ve raced twice this season, once with Freddie and once without. I decided after that I wasn’t going to go through any competitions without him, because I prefer him being there.”
Hodgkins Byrne made her Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 in 2021, competing in the quad alongside her youngster sister Charlotte.
Along with fellow Team GB Olympian Helen Glover – who will be Great Britain’s flag bearer at Friday’s opening ceremony – she is one of two British rowers to make her return to the Games after becoming a mother, with the governing body British Rowing due to publish a maternity policy that aims to clear the path for athletes to resume competition after pregnancy.
In Paris, both her partner and Freddie will stay nearby enabling daily contact time, with Hodgkins Byrne lodging away from the Olympic village in a hotel.
When I’m rowing, it’s the only time someone isn’t going to come and ask me for a meal or want a nappy changing.— Mathilda Hodgkins Byrne
“You get a lot less recovery time,” she told PA. “You can’t go home and sit on your sofa because there’s always a little person that needs looking after. But the best bit is that I walk thorough my front door and I can’t really think about rowing. Straightaway he takes me away from the stress.
“Coming back at the beginning of the season and trying to break back into the team, it was really stressful.
“But I’d finish training, go home and we’d go for a walk. You see a toddler running along and chasing a ball, and you realise whatever happens you’re always going to have this person. The world is so much bigger. You see it through their eyes.”
