{"id":218445,"date":"2026-01-03T14:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/218445\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T14:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T14:51:12","slug":"guernseys-chalmers-baby-news-joy-ahead-of-commonwealth-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/218445\/","title":{"rendered":"Guernsey’s Chalmers’ baby news joy ahead of Commonwealth Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlastairAlastair Chalmers<\/p>\n

Alastair Chalmers and his partner Ellie Bell’s new arrival is due this summer<\/p>\n

One of Guernsey’s top athletes Alastair Chalmers, is set for a momentous 2026 as he prepares to become a dad for the first time alongside training for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old said it would be a “dream” to get a medal and “walk around the track with his baby”.<\/p>\n

It follows the pregnancy announcement with his partner Ellie Bell on social media on 29 December 2025, which he described as “a beautiful thing”. <\/p>\n

Chalmers became Guernsey’s first athletics medallist at the Commonwealth Games when he won bronze in Birmingham in 2022 and made his Olympic debut at Paris 2024. <\/p>\n

‘Support system’<\/p>\n

“A dream of mine would be to get a medal, win the Commonwealth Games or the Europeans, and to walk around the track with the baby. I mean, that would be incredible,” Chalmers said. <\/p>\n

But he admitted a lot can happen between now and then.<\/p>\n

On how he’ll balance juggling his athletics career with a newborn, he said it would be “hard work”, but was equally “exciting”:<\/p>\n

“My partner’s so maternal, she loves looking after babies, so she’s going to be a great mother. I train in the morning usually until around lunchtime, so I’ll be able to help her out more than if I worked a proper job luckily.”<\/p>\n

He accepted there could be “difficult moments”, but has taken inspiration from fellow father-athletes, adding one of his good friends in Wales had a baby and “then went and won the world indoors and the European indoors”.<\/p>\n

Chalmers added: “It’s just about your support system, like having family and friends around to help”. <\/p>\n

\"MartinMartin Rickett\/PA Wire<\/p>\n

Alastair Chalmers during the Men’s 400m Hurdles at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. The sportsman’s training programme involves training for three “very hard and intense weeks”, before a “d-load week”, which allows for recovery<\/p>\n

On his training regime, to be balanced around the new baby, Chalmers said he woke up “most mornings sore and tired”. <\/p>\n

“I’m on my back after a session for half an hour, kind of yelling because my hamstrings are on fire.<\/p>\n

“I’ve had someone walk past and say, ‘Do you want me to call an ambulance?’ because I mean, we’re lying on our backs completely dead.”<\/p>\n

He admitted to waking up in the morning, looking outside at the weather, knowing “you’ve got to go do some horrendous session”. <\/p>\n

“It’s all hard work which makes us the best”, he said. <\/p>\n

To fuel such sessions, he said he consumed lots of protein and carbohydrates, doesn’t drink too much alcohol and does a lot of work in the gym to prevent injuries.<\/p>\n

“It takes a lot and we’ve got to stay healthy to avoid getting ill or injured.” <\/p>\n

‘Hard work’ <\/p>\n

The dad-to-be said, on coping with the pressure of events, he’s luckily always been quite strong-minded:<\/p>\n

“I’ve used the crowd and the pressure to actually accelerate my performance and to do better. I work too hard to go mess it up on the start line,” he said.<\/p>\n

Chalmers reflected he was around 18 when he first realised his desire to pursue athletics as a career.<\/p>\n

“It’s not down to luck, but it’s how hard you work and your genetics and the right time, right place, the groups you join and your life decisions too.”<\/p>\n

He hoped winning Guernsey’s first ever Commonwealth Games medal at Birmingham 2022, for track and field would inspire younger generations.<\/p>\n

“There was a huge reception for that and hopefully kids can look up to that.<\/p>\n

“It’s not like ‘you’re from Guernsey and there’s no chance of succeeding and getting to the top level’, there is. <\/p>\n

“It’s how you get nurtured and the hard work you put in and how driven you are and so it’s lovely to have that here.”<\/p>\n

The five-time British champion and Olympic and World Championship semi-finalist will likely be one of Guernsey’s 20 competitors in Glasgow this summer.<\/p>\n

The Commonwealth Games is the highest international stage on which Guernsey competes in its own right.<\/p>\n

Chalmers said he had always wanted to have a family and hoped to “bring the baby along to these amazing experiences”. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alastair Chalmers Alastair Chalmers and his partner Ellie Bell’s new arrival is due this summer One of Guernsey’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-218445","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}