Good morning,

A couple of weeks ago I went to a conference. It was mostly about email marketing but my favourite thing about it was finding out that the woman who won the long jump (and three other gold medals!) at the 1948 Olympics was three months pregnant at the time. I introduce to you Fanny Blankers-Koen:

she qualified to return to the Olympics, leaving her children behind in Amsterdam. “I got very many bad letters,” she recalled, “people writing that I must stay home with my children.” The British team manager, Jack Crump, took one look at Blankers-Koen and said she was “too old to make the grade.” Few knew it at the time, but she was already three months pregnant and training only twice a week in the summer leading up to competition.

Pregnant, dismissed, doing the bare minimum, and still a champion – please enjoy this strong draught of womanspiration:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-flying-housewife-of-the-1948-london-games-10049278/?no-ist

On a less chipper but not less important note, I enjoyed this article by Olympic swimmer Leisel Jones about her experience of depression. Other things to note; altitude training sounds pretty horrible, and so does her former fiancé. She has a book out too so if you enjoy this article you could put that on your Christmas list.

"I just dug so deep in that last 50 metres, I kinda forgot to breathe." This is true, in part. But I'm not wobbly and faint and feeling sick to my core just because I am short of breath. If I ate a decent meal once in a while; if I didn't have boyfriend dramas; if I was nicer to myself occasionally; then maybe I wouldn't be laid out on the tiles for the world to see, hoping the TV cameras don't get a shot of my swimming-tog wedgie.

http://www.watoday.com.au/good-weekend/olympic-swimmer-leisel-joness-dive-into-depression-20150910-gjjkkq

Happy Advent everyone!

Alex.