I want to show what mums can do ... winning a medal would mean a lot

“I SPEND a lot of my days being on a thread that’s very thin — it’s hard, so hard,” Helen Glover says, speaking like any parent of young children.

- Matt Majendie

The difference is the mum-of-three — six-year-old Logan and four-year-old twins, Willow and Kit — has her sights set on a third Olympic title in Paris.

A typical day sounds exhausting. Her husband, the adventurer and TV presenter Steve Backshall is away on a shoot at the time of our interview. Mornings begin early and typically entail dropping her kids at school and nursery before two sessions on the water, followed by weights or Watt bike work at home, before setting off to school pick-up.

From there, it might be swimming or tennis for the kids, then back home for dinner, bath and bedtime, the latter of which begins at seven but sometimes runs to 8.30pm, before collapsing into bed. And the 38-year-old does not think what she is doing is particularly remarkable.

“It’s never-ending, but everything is relentless as parents, no matter whether you have got a busy job or you’re a stay-at-home parent,” she says.

“I’m just throwing another thing into the mix that is maybe a bit more physically exhausting than some other jobs. Some days it runs smoothly, but it doesn’t take much for a child to have a temperature or to forget their shinpads for football, and then the phone call comes.”