Weekend Interview: All mums are amazing, insists athletics' '˜super-mum' Jo Pavey

FOR all top-tier athletes, there is a moment in their careers when everything fuses together perfectly, when they feel unbeatable, invincible almost, and achieve their lifetime ambition.

In among the myriad highlights of Usain Bolt’s career, that zenith came in Berlin in 2009 when he broke world records that still stand today in both the 100m and 200m.

Jessica Ennis-Hill’s highlight was the London 2012 heptathlon.

For Jo Pavey, the moment arrived when she perhaps, given what we expect of elite athletes, had no right to be besting the field and rising to the top step of the podium.

Britains Jo Pavey celebrates winning the womens 10,000m final in the 2014 European Championships at the Letzigrund Stadium, Zurich, at the age of 41 (Picture: Adam Davy/PA Wire).

It came three years ago in Zurich in the 10,000m final of the European Championships, when Pavey was aged 41 and a mother of two, having given birth to her second child only a year earlier.

A career spent in the shadows, attending major championships but rarely threatening the medals, peaked that day in Switzerland and suddenly this unassuming mother from Devon was thrust into the national sporting consciousness.

‘Super-mum’ screamed the headlines as Pavey became the unlikely face of a women’s sport movement growing stronger by the passing event.

How inspirational her story had become was reinforced by the fact that she went on to finish third in the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year poll at the end of 2014.

Three years later, having now turned 44, she is still running, competing and dreaming.

“I haven’t ruled out trying to qualify for Tokyo,” she says, smiling, at the prospect of a sixth Olympic Games. “I’ll be very, very old by then, but I haven’t ruled it out.”

Whether she makes it or not, Pavey stands as a beacon for what can be achieved by not just women in sport, but by mothers.

Yorkshire’s Ennis-Hill might have won a world title in 2015 a little over a year after giving birth to her first child, but, generally, women returning to the same levels of achievement they had prior to the many changes their bodies go through in child-birth – and the increased demands on their time – is rare.

“For me, being a mum has allowed me to take a step back and think about the experiences I had as a very young athlete,” says Pavey. “My performances improved because I had that balance in my life. Before that I was just training, getting rested, and focusing on my running.

“When I became a mum, mentally I became so much happier in myself. I had a better balance in my life and that led to better performances.

“Initially I didn’t know how it would work. I thought I’d end up retiring. But as a parent it gave me the chance to show my children it’s fun to be fit and active.