00:01My success is pretty much all down to my mum. She is literally my superhero. We
00:09lived about 45 minutes away from the swimming pool when I was growing up so
00:12my mum was getting up at half four in the morning taking me training. She was
00:16then had to she gave up her job just because it was so much time in the car.
00:20I've got two sisters as well and she never neglected them or took them for
00:24granted even though she was ferrying me around to training and competitions and
00:28she gave each of us so much time and dedication and she had to become my
00:33nutritionist, my physio, my taxi driver, my financial support, my emotional support.
00:39She literally became everything and I leave two of my Olympic medals actually
00:44at my mum and dad's as I say they're half theirs just as much as they are mine so
00:49they deserve to have the medals just as much as I do. My mum has always just
00:53given me just so much love and so much honesty. We're a bit too honest in our
00:59family but she's always kind of brought me up to just be honest about everything.
01:03Some people do sometimes see it as a bad thing as I am sometimes a bit too
01:07opinionated but I love the fact that it's given that there's no kind of grey line
01:12in our family. We're very black and white and I love that and I love that we are
01:16like that and very much taught to listen to our gut and I think as an athlete that
01:21really helped me to trust my own instincts and to go with my own kind of
01:25right I should do this and that and my own morals and my mum has been the one
01:29that's kind of fundamentally driven that and now I hope to pass that on to my
01:33daughter as well about kind of being honest, listening to yourself, trusting
01:38yourself as well and I think that's a very difficult thing to do is always trust
01:42your gut and yet I do and that's all because of my mum and especially since
01:46giving birth and becoming a mum myself I feel like it has really bonded us in a
01:50totally different way. My mum is the only person in the world that I trust to go
01:55to for advice on my daughter if I'm ever struggling with something and so many
01:59people throw their opinions at you when you become a mum yet I just trust my mum
02:03wholeheartedly and she's the sole person that I go to and it's lovely to now see
02:08her be a grandma to my daughter and she just absolutely loves her and it's just
02:12the best that we all get to be together and we all just have such a good time.
02:16The thing that surprised me the most about becoming a mum is just how much it
02:20changes you as a person. I think I've always been quite tough, I've been quite, I've
02:26always been seen as that I would be the bad cop as the parent, I would always be the
02:29one telling them off and kind of keeping them in check and actually I became a mum
02:33and this kind of really soft side came out of me that I never expected to have. I'm
02:38not massively maternal but since giving birth and having my daughter I've become very much more maternal. I just want
02:44to protect her from
02:45everything and I worry about her all the time and I'm like I always say to my mum
02:49it's like is this just what being a mum is that you just worry and she's like yeah
02:52that never goes away and I love that that it's shown a kind of different side of me
02:58a soft side that I can be those things not just kind of the tough hard nails
03:03athlete that is there's a different side of me.
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