Zoe Gillings-Brier announces she is pregnant
Thu, 18 Feb 2016
hree time TeamGB Olympian and World Cup winning snowboard athlete Zoe Gillings-Brier has just announced she is expecting her first child.
Zoe described the news as "surprising" and "a shock" but that her and her husband, Dan Brier, were really looking forward to it.
She said, "I suspected [I may be pregnant] a few weeks ago as I started to get symptoms, but I was competing until the end of last month and decided to come back to the UK to check things out. I got the ultra sound in the last week. Yes, it was unexpected, it’s a surprise and a bit of a shock, but I’m massively excited and completely committed to getting back on the snow."
"I’m really excited about it all to be honest and it’ll be amazing to have an extra little cheer-leader for me!"
Zoe's current season has been cut short by a few weeks but she said the timing couldn't be better, "To be honest, it’s pretty awesome timing actually because I’ll only miss a few weeks of this season and it [the baby] should arrive mid-August, so it’s a decent amount of time to get back in shape for the new season which is brilliant."
On returning to competition, Zoe said there was "no doubt" she would be back and was really looking forward to returning having taken huge inspiration from World Champion and friend Shelley Rudman and Olympic champion Jessica Ennis-Hill who have both returned strong after pregnancy.
“The qualification period for PyeongChang [2018 Winter Olympics] begins next winter and I’ll find out in the summer how it’ll all work. I’ll be back for the start of it though and it’ll be exciting to see how I get on. There’s a lot of research being done about how women can potentially come back stronger [after pregnancy] because of hormones, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll affect me and maybe we’ll see … if there’s a little bonus then great.”
