Bethany Firth has seen it all and won the lot, so when she gave birth to her first child Charlotte, people naturally assumed it was the end of the six-time Paralympic gold medallist career in the pool.

However, Firth, who is also a six-time world champion, is keen to prove the doubters wrong and she will represent Team NI in Glasgow at the Commonwealth Games, defending the title she won four years ago.

The 30-year-old is determined to prove the doubters wrong by taking the gold in Glasgow but admits it is difficult trying to balance motherhood and being an elite athlete.

“I feel like there's a big space for women here to come back to sport and to change the way we look at it,” she said.

placeholder image — Northern Ireland's Bethany Firth celebrates with the gold medal after winning the Women's 200m Freestyle S14 Final at the Sandwell Aquatics Centre during the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA)

“I don't think it should then be something that's really like, ‘oh my goodness, that's really shocking’...I think it should just be the norm now with the right support, so I think it's really exciting and I really want to push that forward.

“I think in my head, I never said I was retiring and people just assumed it when you say you're pregnant. I think that's really hard for women and if a man was to say he was having a child, they wouldn't have done that.

“So, it really did annoy me that people assumed rather than I had never mentioned that, why couldn't I be both? I think I've just shown that this year, I've gone to trials and I've competed faster than I've swum in 10 years, I do have a baby, and I am a little bit older, but it's not stopping me.

“I'm not going to lie, it's very difficult and there needs to be a lot more support.

“If it wasn't for my family, I definitely wouldn't have been able to do it, so I do think there's something there for women.

"I definitely think it really pushed me on and it was something that I wanted to do for myself and I wanted to show her that, do you know what, if I did want to do this, I could do this and it was an opportunity for me.

“As an athlete, you have to be very selfish, you have to nap when you need a nap, you have to eat what you need to eat and you need to train when you need to train and with Charlotte, she's my first priority.

“I have to balance her before I can do everything else and I am doing that and I am trying my best and I think it's given me a different perspective in sport.

“It's made me enjoy it a lot more, like I see her exploring the world and learning new things and it takes away a bit of the pressure off.

“We put a lot of pressure on ourselves and just seeing life through her eyes, I think it's really changed my perspective.”

A Commonwealth Games gold medal was the only one missing from Firth’s vast collection and she righted that wrong in Birmingham by becoming the first Team NI swimmer to ever top the podium.

She reflected: “It was so nice representing Northern Ireland and just to get that first gold, that was the first time the women were allowed to swim in the S14 category there, so it was really exciting.

"So to go back this year and hopefully defend my title will be something that I'm really looking forward to.

“There will be a wee bit more pressure on me as defending champion, but I'm going to have Charlotte in the crowd, a lot of my family are coming over and it is like a wee bit of a home games, so we'll just see what happens.”