{"id":34901,"date":"2025-09-17T23:09:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T23:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/bethany-firth-they-assumed-id-retire-that-annoyed-me-firth-on-becoming-a-mum-and-returning-to-swimming\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T23:09:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T23:09:02","slug":"bethany-firth-they-assumed-id-retire-that-annoyed-me-firth-on-becoming-a-mum-and-returning-to-swimming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/bethany-firth-they-assumed-id-retire-that-annoyed-me-firth-on-becoming-a-mum-and-returning-to-swimming\/","title":{"rendered":"Bethany Firth: &#8216;They assumed I\u2019d retire, that annoyed me&#8217; &#8211; Firth on becoming a mum and returning to swimming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is no doubt that when you talk with Firth now, she has a different perspective on life and her swimming.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;People always put a lot of pressure on me. I felt like people expected me to win gold, and it turned into more of a pressure and something that I had to prove myself,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I felt like I wasn&#8217;t good enough if I didn&#8217;t get the gold, but having Charlotte just changed everything.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Watching the girls compete in Paris, I thought it was great. It made me want to swim, but it didn&#8217;t make me feel like I missed it, or I would change anything or I wanted to be there, to be truly honest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;When I win a medal, you get that buzz for a few seconds. With Charlotte I get that buzz all the time, when she crawls or when she walks or when she does the little things she does.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">So, did she ever contemplate retirement? After all Firth is one of Northern Ireland&#8217;s most successful athletes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Six Paralympic titles plus three silvers, five world titles, four silvers and a bronze and a gold for Northern Ireland at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. No one would have had anything negative to say if she had decided to stop.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think it was more that people assumed I would finish my career and the more they assumed, the more it annoyed me, and the more I thought, actually, this is really bad for women in sport,&#8221; she added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Why do we have to choose? Why are people just assuming I&#8217;d stop if I had a child?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It actually never crossed my mind. I knew it would be hard, and I think the challenge of it being hard crossed my mind, but having my family support me and having Charlotte it feels like it makes it all worth it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/swimming\/articles\/c77dn53j0mno?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no doubt that when you talk with Firth now, she has a different perspective on life and her swimming. &#8220;People always put a lot of pressure on me. I felt like people expected me to win gold, and it turned into more of a pressure and something that I had to prove myself,&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34901"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34903,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34901\/revisions\/34903"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}