How do you juggle three young children, two sports careers and one Commonwealth Games dream?<\/p>\n
For husband and wife team Lewis and Ciara Oliva, the challenge is not an easy one, but the Welsh track cyclists are supporting and spurring each other on.<\/p>\n
The pair waved goodbye to the sport with a “fairytale moment” at the Gold Coast Games in 2018, but eight years on they are back for more in the velodrome.<\/p>\n
Lewis heads to his fourth Games, having made his debut at Delhi 2010, while Ciara is competing at her third Games, returning to where it all began in Glasgow in 2014.<\/p>\n
With newfound motivation in the form of their children, Florence, Digby and Ottilie, the Welsh pair are daring to dream again. <\/p>\n
It was the example set by a double Olympic gold medal-winning rower that got Ciara back on the bike first.<\/p>\n
“We were just over the moon with our careers, it felt like we’d achieved everything we wanted to [by 2018],” said Ciara.<\/p>\n
“Then I watched Helen Glover’s documentary and was so inspired by her that I just thought, ‘Do you know what? Is this possible? Could I have a crack at it?’ <\/p>\n
“Lewis joined me at the beginning of the year as well.”<\/p>\n
Ciara says that trying to emulate Glover’s example has been a delicate balancing act.<\/p>\n
“It is a big juggle,” she told BBC Sport Wales. <\/p>\n
“But that’s made the journey all the more worthwhile because it has been such a journey. <\/p>\n
“To be going to a Commonwealth Games with our three little ones watching us is pretty magical.”<\/p>\n
She admits it was scary to tell the world about her ambitions to return to the sport.<\/p>\n
“I was very emotional; this has been such a big target for me,” Ciara said.<\/p>\n
“I was quite scared when I first announced I was going to do this comeback because you do fear the usual, ‘What if it doesn’t happen? What if I’m not able to achieve what I want to?’ <\/p>\n
“Lewis was very good and supportive, saying, ‘What if it does happen?’ <\/p>\n
“That’s kind of been my philosophy throughout, just to give it absolutely everything.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How do you juggle three young children, two sports careers and one Commonwealth Games dream? For husband and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-718020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}