Helen Glover MBE is a British double Olympic Gold medallist, Olympic Silver medallist, triple World champion and quadruple European champion in rowing. With Heather Stanning they won Britain’s first Olympic gold medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Since 2011, Helen is undefeated internationally and holds the World Record in... Read More
Helen Glover MBE is a British double Olympic Gold medallist, Olympic Silver medallist, triple World champion and quadruple European champion in rowing. With Heather Stanning they won Britain’s first Olympic gold medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Since 2011, Helen is undefeated internationally and holds the World Record in the women’s pairs category. Helen was awarded an MBE in 2013 for her services to rowing. At the Rio Olympic Games in 2016, Glover’s reign continued with Stanning when they retained their Olympic title. Meticulous planning, science and commitment to leave no stone unturned all played significant importance in Glover’s success.
Remarkably Helen only took up rowing in 2008 when she was identified through the UK’s Sporting Giants recruitment scheme designed to identify and train athletes of a suitable size. She is a gifted sportswoman and competitor and prior to rowing had competed internationally in cross country and trained with the England Hockey Satellite Squad. Following the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, she married BAFTA winning TV wildlife presenter Steve Backshall and had their first child, Logan and later twins Kit & Willow. In 2017 she entered and won the 125 mile Devizes to Westminster ultra-endurance kayak race. Six days later she ran her first marathon in 3 hours 5 minutes.
Later that year she qualified for the Ironman World Championships in Cape Town. The Covid-19 pandemic saw Helen return to training with an aim of competing again, alongside Polly Swann. The pair won the European Coxless Pairs title in April of 2021. Incredibly, just 18 months after the birth of her twins, Helen competed at the Tokyo Olympics, becoming the first British mother to row at an Olympics. As recently as the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Helen returned to the podium gaining a silver medal in the Women’s Four. Helen was able to do so with her three kids in the stands watching and cements herself in Olympic history as the most successful Team GB women’s rower with two golds and a silver medal.