Despite being pregnant, Alison Sheppard is considering a comeback to elite competition. The 32-year-old Commonwealth Champion over 50m freestyle has competed at the last five Olympics and is thinking of going for a place in the freestyle event for the 2008 Beijing games.
Sheppard retired in February and discovered soon afterwards she and husband Gary van der Meulen, also her coach, are set to become parents in October. Nonetheless, the Scot is already considering resuming her career in the pool.
Sheppard said: “I have no regrets about retiring when I did; I didn’t have the motivation to get up at 5.30am every day and put in the training required to perform at the top level. But al ready, I’m missing swimming.”
“Perhaps once the baby is born I’ll think differently but motherhood won’t necessarily be an obstacle – they say giving birth makes women even stronger in the pool.
‘The Olympic trials are at the beginning of 2008 and would be my goal. However, I’d have to declared my intentions to return to competitive swimming nine months before for drug testing purposes so we’ll see what happens.’
Original Story – dailyrecord