COMMONWEALTH Games bound multiple gold medallist swimming Bethany Firth wants more support for mothers returning to sport after giving birth.
The six-time Paralympian gold medallist has recently got back in the pool after having her first child, Charlotte, and has been selected to defend her Commonwealth title in Glasgow after being picked to represent Team NI this summer.
Firth was the first Team NI swimmer to ever win a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games as she achieved success in the S14 200m freestyle final in Birmingham.
“It was so nice representing Northern Ireland and just to get that first gold, that was the first time the women were allowed to swim in the S14 category there, so it was really exciting, So to go back this year and hopefully defend my title will be something that I’m really looking forward to,” enthused Firth.
“There will be a wee bit more pressure on me as defending champion, but I’m going to have Charlotte in the crowd, a lot of my family are coming over and it is like a wee bit of a home games so we’ll just see what happens.
“I feel like there’s a big space for women here to come back to sport and to change the way we look at it.
“I don’t think it should then be something that’s really like, oh my goodness, that’s really shocking, I think it should just be the norm now with the right support, so I think it’s really exciting and I really want to push that forward.”
Firth is out to prove the doubters wrong in Glasgow.
“I think in my head, I never said I was retiring and people just assumed it when you say you’re pregnant, I think that’s really hard for women,” Bethany added.
“So it really did annoy me that people assumed rather than I had never mentioned that, why couldn’t I be both? I think I’ve just shown that this year, I’ve gone to trials and I’ve competed faster than I’ve swum in 10 years, I do have a baby and I am a little bit older, but it’s not stopping me.
“I’m not going to lie, it’s very difficult and there needs to be a lot more support.
“If it wasn’t for my family, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it, so I do think there’s something there for women and just people to think about, you know, with coming back, but I definitely think it really pushed me on and it was something that I wanted to do for myself and I wanted to show that, do you know what, if I did want to do this, I could do this and it was an opportunity for me.”
Firth is balancing motherhood with being an elite athlete.
“As an athlete, you have to be very selfish, you have to nap when you need a nap, you have to eat what you need to eat and you need to train when you need to train and with Charlotte, she’s my first priority,” insists Bethany.
“I have to balance her before I can do everything else and I am doing that and I am trying my best and I think it’s given me a different perspective in sport.
“It’s made me enjoy it a lot more, like I see her exploring the world and learning new things and it takes away a bit of the pressure off.
“I’m like, I’m really hard on myself and I feel like women in sport can be really hard on ourselves… anyone in sport, really.
“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and just seeing life through her eyes, I think it’s really changed my perspective.”
