Olympic champion Jess Learmonth on Paris prospects, competing as a new mum and her triathlon future

For despite turning 36 this year and having given birth to her son Frederick last September, her passion for triathlon burns as brightly as ever and she is not yet ready to put a timeframe on when that might extinguish.

In a fortnight’s time in Germany, Learmonth - who won an Olympic gold medal as part of the Great Britain triathlon relay team in Tokyo three years ago - will take to the start of a triathlon race for the first time in two years excited about where the second phase of her career will take her.

Already proud as punch at what she accomplished as a late developer in the sport, and with a young family to think of, she kickstarts her triathlon career unencumbered by the pressure to achieve.

“I’m really excited. It’s stressful at the minute organising things, but I just cannot wait to get there to feel the after-effects of racing. I just absolutely love it and I’ve missed it,” Learmonth says.

“I’m just doing it to get back into the swing of things, it’ll be a nice stepping stone to know what it’s like to swim, bike, run hard again.

“After that I’m going to look at some short-course racing a bit later in the year.”

This summer’s Olympics had always been on the Bramham-born runner’s radar, even after childbirth.

But Learmonth injured her calf in a race in May 2022, and then gave birth to Frederick the following September. Even on the morning of the day her son was born she was out running.

“I pulled my calf that day, so I don’t know if that was a good idea,” chuckles Learmonth, who is always ready with a laugh.

The plan was to return to training three months after childbirth and make a late run to Paris but another pulled calf in January stopped her in her tracks. “Paris is probably a no go now, unfortunately,” she concedes.

“Two reasons. I needed everything to go swimmingly post pregnancy and it hasn’t.

“And secondly I can’t get into any races. The start of the season in Abu Dhabi got cancelled, so then everybody is scrambling for points. Because I was pregnant I can’t get as many points and can’t get in the races. It’s just a bit of a nightmare.

“It would have been a tough ask anyway, but at least it gave me motivation to get back into it, I probably wouldn’t have got back into the sport as quickly had it not been for the possibility of Paris. All is not lost.”

There is no bitterness about how it has unfolded, no anger that taking a year out to have a baby affected the amount of races she could contest.

She knows sport now embraces returning mothers whereas a decade ago it might not have done.

The Yorkshirewoman has even gained out of it.

“All my sponsors stood by me and even got new ones like Aqua Pura who are promoting female health and sport in general,” says Learmonth. “A lot of companies are interested in a sporting female athletes and a mum. It’s not been as negative as I thought it might have been.”

Aqua Pura are running a competition to find five amateurs for Learmonth to train for the Great North Run in September.

It is a partnership that fits in nicely with another strand of triathlon she has been cultivating – during her pregnancy, Learmonth took her coaching qualifications.

“I found that when I was an amateur, working full-time like they are, you have a different perspective on things,” she says of the athletes she will be coaching.

“People would be getting to races and being nervous, over-thinking things. I want people to enjoy the sport rather than taking it too seriously.

“Don’t be nervous at races, try and enjoy what you have been working hard towards.”

The logistics of being a mother mean Learmonth cannot train as hard as she used to. Back before her sole trip to an Olympics she was putting in 30 hours a week and her partner John built her an indoor gym where she would repeatedly boil the kettle to steam the room in an effort to replicate the humidity of Tokyo.

Now she can only manage 20 hours. “A lot of the swims are early morning for example when my partner is at work and I’ve got Fred, I can’t be getting my mum and dad in at 6am. It’s given me a new way of looking at it. I’m a bit older now, it might be quite nice that my body is getting that rest it needs.

“It’s going to be interesting to see how I perform. My numbers in training are pretty good.

“I do want to be back to that elite level. I’d knock it on the head if I wasn’t able to compete. Whether it’s short or long-course, it’s hard to know where my passion lies until I race it all, so that’s what I’m doing this year, getting out and racing every distance to see if LA28 is still something I want to try and do, or do I want to explore the longer stuff? I’ll only know that once I start racing.

“I’m ecstatic at how my career has gone, I could not have hoped for any better. To even think I would get to an Olympics was beyond what I thought I would achieve. And that’s what makes racing so enjoyable for me - I don’t have that pressure and expectation of myself, I just bloody love it.”