If, just six months ago, someone had told Libby Clegg that she would be headed to this year’s World Para Athletics Championships, she would barely have believed it.
In April, the sprinter welcomed her first son, Edward, into the world and, having had a C-section, she was feeling, in her own words, crap.
But Clegg is nothing if not determined, and so next week, will pull on a GB vest for the first time since she became a mum.
To have made the team so soon after giving birth is a remarkable achievement by anyone’s standards and Clegg admits that the circumstances mean she is approaching this championship with a slightly different mindset than what she is used to.
“I’m in a really good place at the moment, and there’s no pressure on me. This will be a really good opportunity to get back on the international stage and get a feel for top-class competition again,” the 29-year-old said.
"People don’t know where I’m at so there’s no expectation. Nobody has given me any targets so I’m going in with a different outlook than I would have in the past as a medal hope.
"I’m not near running what I need to be running to be right up there but I love competing under pressure and competing at championships so I might surprise myself. I’m not expecting to be on the podium but I’ll give it my very best and see what I can do.”
Returning to elite level sport at any point after having a baby is no mean feat, but to do it quite as rapidly as Clegg is highly unusual.
However, it has not all been plain sailing for Clegg.
She did, she reveals, train almost every day through her pregnancy, which has aided her comeback no end but she admits that pre-baby, she underestimated the scale of the challenge returning to athletics would be. And added to the task of looking after a baby and training for a World Championships has been that her fiancé, Dan Powell, is a member of the GB Paralympic squad and so has been overseas competing regularly in recent months. And so the responsibility of looking after a baby with little help, as well as fitting in her training sessions has, at times, been tough going.
“I don’t think I really appreciated how hard it is to come back after having a baby. I had that typical athlete mentality of just get on with it and carry on as normal," she said.
"I don’t want to ask anybody for help so I just try to soldier on. There have been a couple of occasions though where I’ve asked my friend to watch him while I go for a nap. It can be mentally really draining looking after a baby all day.
There has, says Clegg, also been significant benefits of becoming a mum to her athletics. She is not the first person to suggest that having a baby puts everything else into perspective; whereas once, sprinting was the be all and end all for her, nowadays, athletics is no longer the most important thing in her life.
“My training is a lot more focused now," she said.
"I want to get back home as quickly as possible so I make the most of every minute at training. That’s been a real positive that’s come of having a baby. And also, my priorities have completely changed – athletics is my job, it’s not my life. It’s whole new perspective.”
Clegg is planning on using next week’s World Championships as a baseline marker as she begins her preparations for the Tokyo Paralympics, which begin in 10 months and where she will defend her 100m and 200m T11 titles. But before that, she has another, somewhat unusual engagement.
At the end of the year, Clegg will star in the ITV show, ‘Dancing on Ice’ which, for someone who has only ice skated twice in their life, is quite a risk. She admits it’s a “crazy idea” but there is method behind her madness.
“I’m absolutely rubbish at ice skating but I’m very coachable," she said.
"It’s terrifying to do the show, but I fancy having a go. It’ll give me the opportunity to get in front of a different audience – I’m not going to be retiring any time soon but in the next few years, my career is going to be coming to an end so I need to think about what I want to do.
"It’s absolutely insane to be doing it in an Paralympic year but it's going to be really good for my core and my posture. There’s a lot of benefits to doing it that will help my athletics.
"It’ll be really fun too – when I get back from the Worlds, I’ll start properly training for it and I’m so excited about it.
"Since I’ve become a mum – I’ve stopped caring about stupid things, I don’t care if other people think I look stupid or anything, I lost my dignity in childbirth so this will be nothing compared to that.”
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