‘Mum guilt is real’: Olympian Alyce Wood’s anguish over leaving sick daughter
En route to Italy for crucial Olympic preparation, Alyce Wood learnt her daughter had been hospitalised. Heading to her third Games after husband Jordan shelved his own athletic career, she’s had to battle hard to overcome ‘mum guilt’.
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Alyce Wood has just landed in Italy for a crucial preparation less than 100 days out from the Paris Olympics.
And she’s feeling the mum guilt. Big time.
During her journey to Europe, Wood learnt that her daughter had been taken to hospital with severe vomiting.
By the time she landed and had been able to FaceTime family last week, daughter Florence, who is just shy of her second birthday, was so listless she was hardly able to recognise her mother.
It was a distressing time for Wood, who is preparing for a third Olympics having given birth to Florence following the Tokyo Games.
“The Mum guilt was real and all I wanted to do was turn around and go back to Australia, but I knew I had a job to do and she was in the best possible hands with (Jordan) and my Mum and Dad,” Wood said in an Instagram post this week.
Thankfully, Florence, who is being looked after by dad Jordan Wood, a two-time sprint kayaking Olympian, bounced back quickly and has made a full recovery.
But it showed the sacrifices Wood - who will be competing in the opening International Canoe Federation World Cup in Hungary on Mother’s Day - is making to chase her Olympic dream.
Like most parents, the Woods planned their pregnancy. However unlike most mums to be, Alyce was operating on a strict timeline.
The Covid-forced delay to the Tokyo Games meant that she now would have only three years, rather than the regular four between Olympiads, to chase a dream of falling pregnant, having a child and backing up to compete again in Paris.
Wood, who competed in the K2 event at the Rio Games and paddled both the K1 and K2 craft in Tokyo, knew she wanted to push on to compete at a third Olympics.
“Leading into Tokyo, particularly with the delay (to the Games), we spoke a lot about retirement and family and what it looked like for both of us,” Wood said.
“It was on the cards for both of us to continue but I think starting a family was always the top priority.
“Jordan was probably more ready to retire than me. We spoke about us both going forward and having a baby, but honestly, I just I don’t think we would have been able to make it work - it would have been a massive juggle, more than what it is now.
“So he took one for the team, I guess.”
Looking to transition into the workforce as an apprentice carpenter, the timing was right.
“I think he could have continued - and he’s younger than me, so on paper, it says that he could have been the one that kept going - but not in our case.”
Instead, Jordan has taken on the role as primary carer when Wood heads to camps and competitions, while a network of family is on board to ensure Wood’s Paris dream became a reality.
Elite level planning
Before Jordan could even take on that role though, there had to be a pregnancy, a baby and a return to competition for Wood - something that required precision planning without any guarantee those plans would be put into action.
“Falling pregnant isn’t like sport,” Wood said.
“Sport, you train for it and essentially, what you put in is what you get out.
“But falling pregnant is not something that you can trust that it’s just going to happen first time or second time.
“Leading into and after Tokyo, we had some time restraints on it all but we just didn’t know what it was going to look like for me, or how I was going to handle pregnancy or what my birth was going to be like, or will my baby be healthy or not?
“So there was definitely a plan in place, but there was also a lot of flexibility around those plans because … there’s just so much unknown.”
Unknown too was just how much training and of exactly what type Wood could do while pregnant.
The solution was the result of proper planning once again.
Wood researched everything she could around exercise during pregnancy and then how much to do post-partum.
But there’s scant research on high performance training during, or shortly after, pregnancy.
Few pregnant women train up until they give birth - Wood was still paddling in a boat at 33 weeks - so it became essentially a team effort, with the now 31-year-old leaning on all the support she could access.
Sports scientists, medicos, those from the Australian Institute of Sport and Paddle Australia and her teammates were enlisted, while Wood also offered herself up as a test subject for researchers from Central Queensland University, who followed her journey from the Tokyo Games through to last year’s world championships, where her effort in the K1 qualified the boat for the Paris Games.
Wood is now a co-author on a study with Dr Melanie Hayman and her team, with preliminary findings presented at the Sports Medicine Australia conference last year.
“All the different numbers that they got and see a few outcomes from that, it really is different to what maybe the guidelines (for exercise during pregnancy) say,” Wood said.
“The guidelines are for the general population, not for athletes, but essentially it goes against what they say.
“I hope that this case study gives a bit of power and knowledge to people and maybe support teams that like a little bit in the dark starting process of it,” she said.
“Particularly I think it’s really timely leading into Paris (Olympics) and then there’ll be another crop of people wanting to start families after Paris.”
It takes a village
While she qualified the boat for Paris with her fifth placing in the K1 500m final at the world championships in Germany last year, it wasn’t until she was the first Aussie across the line at the Oceania championships this year that Wood sealed her ticket to a third Games.
Even before that though, she had felt like the sacrifices were all worth it.
“I think that first selection back last year when I made the Australian team after the pregnancy, the relief and emotion I felt when I won that race (at world championship trials) was like nothing that I felt before,” she said.
“It was a super bizarre feeling because it was like this overwhelming sense of joy mixed with relief, mixed with a bit of concern about what the next step was.
“There’s this pressure that I’m this mum-athlete and people are looking to me for what I’m doing and what I’m training like or how I’m progressing and so there was a lot of emotion in that (selection), that’s for sure.”
Wood has support not just from her husband, training partners and sports scientists though but an extended family that has a unique understanding of the challenges she’s facing.
Mother-in-law Anna Wood, now the head coach of Australia’s Paralympic program, competed at four Olympics, the first for the Netherlands, where she won bronze in 1988, before wearing the green and gold at Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, winning another bronze in 1996 in the K2 500m with Katrin Borchert.
Like her daughter-in-law, Anna competed as a mother, winning bronze in Atlanta when Jordan was just two - almost the identical age that Florence will be in Paris.
“If there’s anyone I want to model myself on it’s her,” Wood said.
When the window between the Tokyo and Paris Games suddenly shrank to three years, Wood doubted there was time to become a parent and make a comeback until she “did the maths” and realised Anna was operating on almost exactly the same timeline.
“I’ve definitely encouraged her to do it because you can do it, your body’s amazing,” said Anna, who also competed in Atlanta less than a year after the death of her husband and Jordan’s father, Olympic medallist Steve.
“I came back stronger and I think she’s come back stronger.”
All in the family
If the research on high performance training during pregnancy is scant now, imagine what it was like 30 years ago.
Wood’s coaches didn’t know how far she could push the envelope and there was no physio support, nutritionists or psychologists around the team to lend support.
“It was literally just using common sense and get on with it - which was one of my strengths, thank god,” Anna said.
Anna is among the network of family and friends who help with Florence and while she’s proud of Wood’s comeback, she’s just as proud of the role her son takes on when Wood is away.
“It’s just great to see that it is all so possible now,” she said.
“Well, it’s always been possible but he’s just embraced it and he’s loving it.
“He loves his little girl. And I think they are really good family all together, and they just make it work.
“They do whatever is necessary to make things work, and I’m pretty proud of both of them, both Jordan and Alyce because they’ve done a great job so far.”
Florence will be in Paris to cheer mum on at the Vaires-sur-Marne nautical Stadium after heading to Europe with Jordan, who will attend the first two weeks of the Aussie team’s training camp before taking a “Euro trip” with his daughter for 10 days while Wood knuckles down to finalise her Olympic preparations.
“I think back to when Anna, my mother-in-law, raced in Atlanta two years after Jordan was born … it’s pretty much the same timeline as what I’m doing,” Wood said.
“And Jordan, I don’t think he remembers completely but he has all these photos from that and you could see in Anna’s face, the pride she had at the finish line, and she’s holding Jordan, and there’s photos of him cheering her on and I think that’s pretty special that Florence gets to do that.
“She won’t remember it, actually remember, but she’ll still have these photos and these stories that she can take with her, just like Jordan has as well and that’s pretty cool.”
Paris predictions
Wood, who will be reunited with Florence next week when she returns home for a last training push ahead of Paris, doesn’t know what the future holds for her at the Games later this year.
She’s confident in her preparation and has outstanding role models, not just in her own mother-in-law but in the multiple mothers that stood on the podium at last year’s world championships.
“My family has sacrificed a hell of a lot for me to do what I’m doing and they’re so stoked for me to be doing it,” Wood said.
“I can definitely say how lucky I am to have that support - and to be changing the mould a little bit with Jordan the primary caregiver when I’m away.
“It’s a very different narrative to what we would have seen maybe 10 or 20 years ago.”
Wood felt like she hit the jackpot in Rio when she and Aly Bull upset the experienced Naomi Flood and Jo Brigden-Jones to win the K2 spot for the 2016 Games.
To be on the cusp of becoming a three-time Olympian is something she never imagined.
“When I was a kid, being an Olympian was the dream,” she said.
“And then I did that in 2016 and now to have a third to my name, I just never thought that’d be possible.
“What’s really cool about that is that Bully (Aly Bull) and I will be going to our third Olympics and the last female in Australia to do that was Anna.
“Anna is a legend in our sport … so it’s cool to be I guess, in her league a little bit. And it’s a bit of a full circle moment for the family, which is pretty cool.”
Wood has some incredible opponents ranked ahead of her in the K1 but after finishing fifth last year just 12 months after giving birth, she believes her best is yet to come.
“Every Olympics is emotional because you really do understand how much sacrifice from yourself but also your family and your coaches and your support staff and everyone puts in for you to race for a minute 50 (seconds),” Wood said.
“It’s going to be emotional over there, for sure.
“I’m working with my psychologist now about how to handle that emotion and roll with that emotion because it would be naive of me to think that I won’t feel emotional.
“I know that if and when I make that final and see Florence, I think I’ll 100 per cent cry - and that’s okay - but yeah, I think it’ll be an emotional time.”
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