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Olympic moms: 13 mothers compete for Team USA

The “Celebrating Moms” series of commercials by Proctor & Gamble during Olympic coverage is a tear-jerking ode to sacrifices mothers make to support their kids’ athletic careers. But what about athletes who are mothers, themselves?

Elite athlete moms have the same run-of-the-mill work/life balance as the rest of us. But these 13 Olympic moms do put parenting – both its challenges and rewards – in a new perspective.

7. Chaunté Lowe – High Jump

Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP
Chaunté Lowe competes in the women’s high jump qualifying round at the US Olympic Track and Field Trials on June 28, 2012, in Eugene, Ore. Lowe tied for first.

High jumper Chaunté Lowe said getting back into shape after her second pregnancy in 2011 was not as easy as it was for the first.

“Absolutely not,” she said in an article for the Team USA website. “I don’t know what I was thinking. My husband and I work very hard because we spoil our daughters with love, attention and time. It’s really hard to give the children the attention they need, especially when you’re training hard and trying to fit four years worth of Olympic training into a couple of months.”

Ms. Lowe enters her third Olympic Games as the current US record holder in the high jump, a height of 6 feet, 8-3/4 inches.

Her first Olympics was Athens in 2004 where she placed 13th. That same year she was a student at Georgia Tech University, winning the NCAA indoor and outdoor championships. In 2005, she was the NCAA indoor champion, and she also placed second at the 2005 World Outdoor Championships, becoming the first American woman to win a high jump medal at the competition since Louise Ritter won bronze in 1983.

She took took time off in 2007 to give birth to daughter Jasmine and again in 2011 when daughter Aurora was born.

Lowe is a five-time US Outdoor champion (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012), as well as a two-time US Indoor champion (2006 and 2012). In Beijing in 2008, her second Olympic Games, Lowe placed sixth.

She joins teammate Amy Acuff, also a mother, for the high jump competition on Aug. 9.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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