Glover yet to decide on future after Olympic silver

Helen Glover says she has yet to make a decision on whether she will retire from rowing.

The 38-year-old mother-of-three helped Team GB’s women’s four win silver in Paris on Thursday.

It was her third Olympic medal, having won pairs gold in 2012 and 2016 with Heather Stanning before stepping away from the sport to start a family.

She returned in time for the delayed 2020 Olympics in Tokyo where she and Polly Swann finished fourth in the pairs.

“It probably is too early to think about what happens next,” Glover told BBC Cornwall.

“I think that I need to go away and enjoy the downtime for little while.

“I’ve learnt twice now that you should never commit yourself to retirement, so I’m just going to go away and enjoy just being mum and seeing where it takes me.”

Glover’s six-year-old son and four-year-old twins watched on as she was presented with her medal and she said her children had been a big motivation.

“I think if I hadn’t made it on to the podium, that would have been really hard.

“I had just pictured this moment where I was stood there getting a medal with my kids in front of me, and that happened yesterday and so that kind of meant everything.”

Glover said having a family has put her life, and sport, into perspective as she looks back on a career as one of the country’s most decorated Olympic rowers.

“Sport is great and it’s what my life has been based around and it’s what I’m passionate about, but it pales in comparison to the importance of my kids,” she said.

“So I feel like it’s something that I’m lucky to do and really fortunate to do, but it is not everything, and seeing their faces and seeing how much they enjoyed cheering me on and were there for part of the process, I think that was more to me.”

Penzance-born Glover is the only women from Cornwall to win an Olympic gold medal and is the one of county’s most decorated Olympians.

She joined the Olympic rowing programme after coming through the Sporting Giants scheme searching for talent for London 2012, having previously been a PE teacher.

Glover hopes her story can inspire athletes from Cornwall to try and succeed on the biggest stage.

“It means everything to me. I am Cornish, that’s who I am, that’s my roots,” she said.

“The support has been amazing and I’ll always be proudly Cornish and it’ll always be home for me.

“Sometimes you feel quite far away I guess from the bright lights of the big city and people who become Olympians and people who go on and do things.

“I’m just determined to say when you see that flag flying anywhere that it shows you can branch out, you can reach out to wherever you want to be in this world, you can do whatever you want to do, and being Cornish can be your superpower.”