Triathlete Helen Jenkins interview: Unable to walk post-pregnancy to her own Tiger Woods-inspired injury comeback

Tiger Woods winning his fifth Masters jacket on the Augusta greens in April was one of the moments of the year, in a comeback story that gripped the sporting world. But for British triathlete Helen Jenkins, watching heavily pregnant from her home in the Welsh town of Bridgend, his win represented something more personal.

As a two-time world champion who in 2018 had a similar spinal fusion surgery to the golf great, it was a result that renewed her faith in returning to elite sport. "It's a really positive story for me to look at because if he can come back from that, the force he's rotating with during golf, it gives me hope that I can get over my issues," Jenkins says.

Blighted by a back problem which flared up in 2012, Jenkins, 35, had employed pain management into her training for years. But in early 2018 - more than a year out of competition and after the birth of her first child Mali - her pain worsened. Her concerns shifted from getting back to the start-line, to simply being able to pick up her child.

"After the pregnancy all the ligaments relaxed and it got a lot worse. I was really struggling, a few episodes my back went and I couldn't really walk for a week.

"It wasn't even about professional sport at that point, it was that I really want an active life with my kids in the future, to go for a bike ride with them, surfing with them. Am I going to be able to do that? That's why I had the surgery, I now have screws and plates in my spine."

Despite having surgery nearly two years ago, it took until last month for Jenkins to announce she would be returning to triathlon almost three years since her last competition. The delay was in part due to her back recovery, but also because Jenkins and her coach and husband Marc welcomed son Max in May 2019.

In a couple of months she will don her wetsuit to swim, cycle and run to a finish line for the first time since having two children and major surgery, and the unknown involved in that is not lost on the former champion. Adapting to life as a mother alongside training, plus the added task of getting back to fitness following a complicated second pregnancy, will no doubt be tricky.

"It's crazy adjusting to two kids," she says speaking over the phone, literally juggling her two roles as athlete and mother as baby Max gurgles audibly in the background. "You know it's going to be hard work but the first few weeks are a bit like, oh my God.

"With my first [pregnancy] I did pretty good, I trained a lot. I think I ran until about 38 weeks. With Max I found it a lot harder, was a lot more tired, and I had quite a lot of bleeding at 16 weeks which really scared me as it could have been a miscarriage. After that scare you're not thinking about training, you're just thinking about a healthy baby. So I [was] starting from point zero, no fitness.”

Despite being relatively pain-free, Jenkins says the hardware fused into her back means she has had to adjust her swimming style and that has been the hardest change. But the Dubai 70.3 race in February is a start, and a much longer distance than the traditional Olympic events she is used to.

It does not mean Tokyo 2020 is completely off the table, despite her protestations to the contrary while pregnant last March and her omission from 2020's British Triathlon World Class Performance Programme, announced in November. But the three-time Olympian - who placed fifth at London 2012 - knows the chances of her qualifying are a long shot. There are just three places up for grabs and three British women currently in the top ten world rankings.

“As the British girls performed really well in the selection race [in August] the route to Tokyo became even harder,” she says.

“I am going to focus initially on the longer distance races and I have told the performance team at British Triathlon if there is an opportunity to race a World Series [race] which would lead to qualification, I will take it. But it will probably depend on the other British girls’ race schedule.”

Whether or not she will make her fourth consecutive Olympics, Jenkins says she takes inspiration to compete at any level from the multitude of mothers in sport visible nowadays. And, like the images of Woods congratulated by his two children at the Masters, having her own kids see her compete is spurring her on.

"I'm sure some people question it, but there's so many good role models now of women coming back into competing after having children, it's not such an unusual thing anymore. It's for my kids to see what I do. It's quite unknown for me at the moment, but the motivation is there."