Photos: Juliette Drysdale
She’s only just turned two but little Keira Francis knows the value of a gold accessory.
If she spies anyone trying to touch or wear her mother Brooke’s Olympic gold medal, she’ll tell them with that special toddler tone of authority: “That. Is. Mummy’s!”
But for the most part, Keira and her bestie, 22-month-old Rupert, are too young to register their mums’ win at the Paris Olympics. Because while they sat in the stands with family, and joined in with the crowds cheering and clapping during rowing double Brooke Francis and Lucy Spoors’ nail-biting race, rumour has it the two gorgeous tots were more interested in their ice blocks.
Brooke, 29, and Lucy, 33, never saw having a family as a barrier to their dreams. They became our first-ever crew of mothers to win an Olympic rowing medal in the women’s double scull.
Shortly after powering across the finish line – beating the reigning Olympic and world champions from Romania – the elated Kiwis picked up their toddlers from the stands to hug them.
Photographs of the touching moment made headlines around the world. The winning mums were globally celebrated as an example that motherhood was no barrier to elite sporting success.
In fact, for Brooke and Lucy, it was their kids, they say, which provided the motivation for their hard-earned victory and made it all the more rewarding.
The Cambridge sportswomen gave birth three months apart in 2022. They acknowledge there were tough days in their return to international competition.
They had to lower expectations, throw perfection out the door and their ethos became “small steps in the right direction”.
Lucy explains, “For me, it’s not the medal that I’m most proud of. The beginning and the middle of this journey to the Olympics is what I’m most proud of because I know what it’s taken.
“There’s that physical element where your body’s in prime athletic condition. Then you go through pregnancy, the birth and the post-partum period. And you lose that athletic condition and feel so far from where you’ve been.
“It’s such a slow process, and you have to be so patient when you’re frustrated at not being at the top of your game any more and starting back at the beginning.”
Add to that sleepless nights, gruelling training schedules, breastfeeding and even wondering if their milk was visibly leaking during lifting weights.
Brooke and Lucy faced unique challenges which drove them to succeed. But they didn’t want their Rowing NZ teammates to cut them a break because of being new mums.
When they’d arrive at early-morning training on the banks of Lake Karapiro, the duo would give each other a look that conveyed what kind of night they’d had.
“Often we wouldn’t discuss it until after the training session, though,” says Brooke. “We’d both been through a massive morning just to make it to training, so we’d just want to get on with it. Then after the session, you’re like, ‘Whoa, that was hard on five hours of broken sleep.’
“As elite athletes, it’s drilled into you that you need to get as much sleep as you can to recover. Yet when you’re a parent, your kid comes first. You have to tend to them and it’s the way it has to be.
“But we always surprised ourselves that we could get through way more than we thought we could on little to no sleep. It’s a strength we didn’t know we had!”
In fact, the tired mums would sing children’s songs while on the water to get them through training.
“Our coach, James Coote, was probably thinking we were having this deep session, talking about strategies. Really, it was just ‘Mashed banana, mashed banana,’” sings Brooke, breaking into The Wiggles’ classic hit.
Humble and down-to-earth, the pair often make each other laugh during our interview. They reiterate they feel so lucky to be in the same boat, navigating the early stages of motherhood together.
“It’s been such a blessing to be paired with Brooke,” smiles Lucy. She first rowed with Brooke in 2016 when they were in a quad trying to qualify for the Rio Olympics. “I truly can’t imagine doing it with anybody else.
“And the other thing that is so special is the relationship our kids have,” she says, looking over at Rupert and Keira enjoying a teddy bears’ picnic outside with her mum, who both kids call Ginny.
“Rupert and Keira are like brother and sister because they have spent so much time together. I feel grateful they’re going to have that bond forever.”
The champion duo is currently having the next year off. So are they experiencing withdrawal symptoms from each other? “Yeah, pretty much!” they say.
Tells Lucy, “For the past two years, we got used to waking up, going down to training and being able to debrief with each other. Not having that any more has been such an adjustment.
“So now, twice a week, we meet for coffee and visit the playground with the kids. And we’ve continued talking every day because that’s how we’ve got through motherhood.”
Adds Brooke, “I almost feel like I’m getting my maternity leave now. Not that I would change anything!”
After having their babies, both say training took priority over joining an antenatal coffee group.
However, they formed a “mini mums group” with Olympic champion single sculler Emma Twigg. Emma’s son Tommy, with wife Charlotte, was born a few months before Keira and Rupert.
The elite athletes had won Olympic medals previously. Brooke took silver in the double sculls at the Tokyo 2020 Games and Lucy was also a silver medallist there, in the women’s eight.
It was when returning home from Tokyo that Lucy told her parents, Virginia and Mark, “That was so good, I think I want to do it again. But I also really want to have a baby.”
Without hesitation, they said they would be happy to commit to supporting her. And true to their word, Virginia moved up to Cambridge from Christchurch in March last year. Rupert was four months old at the time.
Mark is still commuting between both locations, while Virginia lives with Lucy and her fiancé, former Olympic rower Brook Robertson. The couple will marry in December.
Meanwhile, Brooke moved to Cambridge 12 years ago and owns a house with her husband Jeff.
Both women say they hope to have more children and agree that the real heroes have been their own mothers, who’ve been cheering them on and looking after their grandchildren at rowing courses around the world.
Tells Lucy, “Our mums’ commitment to us has been really unwavering. And I can’t even imagine being a mother without my own mum because of the way she’s helped me. Her commitment to me has been just as big as my commitment to the boat.
“I remember one morning, Brooke texted me at 6am to say Keira had just vomited. Brooke’s mum Leanne drove over 45 minutes down to Cambridge and Brooke still got to training by 7.30am. She wasn’t even late!
“Actually, the commitment of us going to Paris has been a whole family commitment. Our mums would not have travelled to Europe for two months if our dads hadn’t come with them either.”
Brooke continues, “Both our parents were on tour with us in the last month before the Olympics. They lived in Airbnbs next door to each other. They would plan all the trips they were going to do with the kids together while we went to training. That made life so much easier for us. And the relationship that all our parents now have is so cool.”
Lucy’s proud mum Virginia remembers the night before the race, when she turned to her husband Mark and said, “I don’t want to jinx it, but I feel they’ll get a medal.” And he agreed.
The next day, Virginia sat holding her breath during the final, thinking her hunch was right. “We jumped up and we were just super-happy for them.”
It was an even more significant day for the family, who was able to watch Lucy’s sister, Phoebe, win a bronze medal in the women’s four shortly after her own race.
Today, the determined athletes aren’t sure what the future holds for their rowing careers.
“Honestly, we can’t predict how things are going to go when you throw kids into the mix,” reflects Lucy. “I’m still feeling excited about what we could be capable of achieving because it’s been hard but it’s been fun.”
Nodding in agreement, Brooke says, “I don’t want to get cheesy, but for me, our friendship is what I’m most proud of. That we’ve been able to go through the highs and lows together. And we would never want to let each other down.
“I’m in awe of Lucy and have so much respect for her. Being inspired by the person you spend every day with while working towards the same goal is something special.”
Lucy is equally complimentary of her faithful teammate.
“I think Brooke’s insanely tough,” she enthuses. “I don’t think there’s much she couldn’t cope with. And I never feel like I have to filter myself around her. We are quite similar – driven, goal-oriented and with the same work ethic.”
They also reckon they are no different to any other mums going back to work and facing the same challenges.
“Perhaps rowing is slightly more exhausting than an office job, but we don’t people to put us on pedestals,” says Brooke, a part-time sustainability advisor.
“We just wanted to show that you can come back to something, whether it’s work, a hobby, sport… and come back and excel not despite having children but because you have children.”
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