I didn’t expect to be going to another Olympics, says sculler and new mother

MATHILDA Hodgkins Byrne is returning to the Olympics after giving birth to her son in 2022.

The 29-year-old from Charvil is one half of Team GB’s women’s double scull with Becky Wilde.

She was in the women’s quadruple scull that finished seventh at Tokyo 2020 alongside her sister Charlotte and Hannah Scott and Lucy Glover.

Mathilda says that before she fell pregnant with her son Freddie she was not expecting to compete at another Games.

She said: “I was applying for jobs to start in 2021 but that didn’t happen and then when I became pregnant, I was like, ‘Right, I might as well carry on’.

“It’s easier to find your feet doing something that you already know rather than waking up every day and being, like, I literally have nothing to do today. So none of this was planned but I’m so grateful that it has worked out this way.

“Rowing is definitely on my terms now rather than anyone else’s and I think that’s all you can ask for in your career.”

Mathilda rows for Upper Thames Rowing Club and she thanked the club for enabling her to keep her Olympic dream alive after becoming a mother.

She says: “When I had Freddie, they were incredible and allowed me to train with Freddie in the gym. Without that support, I wouldn’t have been able to do weights or use a bike initially.”

She says that while it was challenging at times to balance motherhood with being an elite athlete, her son helped keep her grounded and happy.

She said: “Actually, I’m incredibly grateful to him. When I go home, I can’t get stuck in the rowing bubble. I can’t stress about a session. Yes, he has made my recovery terrible at times but I’ve been amazed at what you can do on absolutely no sleep!”

Mathilda learned to row at Hereford Rowing Club and continued rowing when she went to Reading University to study chemistry.

She says: “I got into rowing because I hated athletics and netball, so it was actually to avoid sport. I was fast enough and I’m competitive and it kind of just stuck.”

Mathilda says that while she is happy to be competing in Paris she would have liked to have had more time with Becky to prepare.

She says: “It feels like we’ve run out of time because of when we were selected and how we were selected. If we’d had a couple more years or even a couple of months, the boat has had such a positive trajectory I would love to have seen what it would get to.

“But I can’t do that so it’s trying to get the most out of it now. As long as we can put our best performance down, whatever result it gets us, I don’t mind, because you can only control what happens in your boat.”

She has enjoyed rowing with Becky and the pair get on well.

Mathilda says: “We’ve been lucky in that we can always be ourselves, which makes our lives easier, and we do get on. It quite a simple boat so whenever we’ve had complications off the water, the boat has always been the safe place that we could go to and actually just enjoy it.”

She will be cheered on at the Olympics by her husband John, who is in the army as well as her mother Kathryn and sister.

She says: “Part of me wanted to see if this was possible. The more of us that don’t end careers because of feeling like we have to because of having children… that was a huge driver coming back.

“Also I’m incredibly competitive, so it’s just a really good outlet. Otherwise, it would all be pushed on to Freddie and I’d be this parent going, ‘You will walk faster, you will speak first!’”