It’s only fitting that Olympic snowboarder Faye Gulini Thelen is forced to reschedule our call—one to discuss balancing motherhood and a professional sport—because her firstborn caught a stomach bug and got sick all over not one, but two car seats. I smile at the earnestness of her voicemail.
When we do connect, I can’t help but point out the coincidence. Thelen laughs. “You know, it’s just part of being a mom,” she tells me. Being an Olympic snowboarder, however, is not typical of the gig. When we speak, she and her fellow Olympic snowboarder mom, Meghan Tierney Daniel, are training to qualify for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Milano-Cortina, Italy.
They had to be honest with themselves: the desire to compete never fully left.
In the following weeks, only Thelen makes Team USA. In a heartfelt Instagram post, Daniel shared that she had a “tough” performance during her qualifying ride and would not be participating in the 2026 Games. Even so, she’s both proud of her own perseverance and the example she’s set for her children.
Returning to Sport
Thelen, 33, made her Olympic debut at 17 and competed in the 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2022 Games, earning a fourth-place finish at the 2014 Games in Sochi, Russia. Daniel is 29, and competed in both the 2018 and 2022 Winter Games. But their laundry list of career highlights and milestones could never compare, they tell me, to the sense of accomplishment that comes with being promoted to Mom.
“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” says Thelen, who is Mom to toddler Theo and infant Scarlett. Daniel, who has little Charlie and Wesley, tells me it’s the “hardest but most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.” Understandably, both women waffled about returning to “sport,” as they call it, after experiencing such a major life change. But they had to be honest with themselves: the desire to compete never fully left.
“Initially, when I had [Theo], I was pretty convinced I was done,” Thelen tells me. She also felt “mom guilt” over the idea of spending time away from him to train. “But I left the door open,” she adds. And, after having baby number two, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the itch to return. Daniel also wanted a comeback, but was faced with the challenge of being patient with her postpartum body, a process that was helped along by the support of her husband. “It’s like, okay, well, your organs still need to go back into place,” she jokes. “He was good at putting it into perspective.”
Olympic Training and Motherhood, Surprisingly, Have Lots in Common
If you think about it, motherhood and sport share similarities. They both require tenacity, dedication, flexibility, and confidence, all of which Thelen and Daniel have in abundance.
“It’s honestly wild how tested you are with children,” says Thelen. “You can go five days with zero sleep and still manage to give them 100 percent.” Such a marathon is not unlike long weeks spent on the road competing, constantly fighting jet lag, and navigating limited options for fueling meals ahead of game time. In both situations, you give it your all, regardless of the circumstances, and somehow, it works out.
As for the differences between motherhood and sport: Physical recovery from childbirth, both athletes say, is pretty under-discussed in the snowboarding world compared to that from sports-related injuries. For example, when they each rehabbed falls—Daniel, a broken L3 vertebrae in 2016, and Thelen, a torn ACL in 2011—there were physical therapy sessions and regimented recuperation. The postpartum rebound, however, was much less prescriptive and more on their own terms.
But their athleticism, of course, never left. Daniel appreciated her level of body awareness (undoubtedly fostered by a lifetime of training), during postpartum months, because it helped her not to push too far, too fast. For Thelen, there were days she couldn’t fit in a full training session due to parental responsibilities, which took some getting used to. “If I get to the gym or if I don’t, I need to be OK with it,” she says.
Then there’s the component of breastfeeding—yet another lifestyle detail mom athletes have to consider. Daniel set a goal to nurse both of her children for six months, a milestone that just so happened to line up with her return to the gym. “It wasn’t like, ‘I’m gonna stop breastfeeding to start training,’ right? It just worked out,” she explains.
At the time of our interview, Thelen is preparing to transition away from the feeding method ahead of an upcoming Olympics training trip to Switzerland. The whole family is going, she tells me, and she’s, admittedly, a little nervous—mostly for the state of her husband’s ears while he soothes their crying baby with a bottle of pumped breast milk. There’s also concern that continued training could tank her supply, but luckily, that hasn’t been the case. “It means a lot to me to breastfeed,” Thelen says. “I’m gonna do everything I can. But at the end of the day, if something happens that I can’t, then we’ll use formula. Babies live on formula all the time, and they’re perfectly healthy.”
Setting an Example for Future Generations
Training may look different for Thelen and Daniel now, but both of them are excited to return to their roots. Ahead of her training in Switzerland, Thelen tells me that she’ll encounter a boardercross course for the first time in over two years, but she admits that she’s more anxious about surviving an international flight with two toddlers than hitting the slopes. “When you do something for so long, it does feel like riding a bike,” she says. “I think I’m gonna feel pretty confident on my board. You realize how resilient you really are as a mother—I think probably more so than I ever did as an athlete.”
My reason for initially quitting was because of my kids, and now my reason for not quitting is because of them.
After returning from a training camp in Argentina, Daniel tells me that she, too, had her renaissance after three years off the board. And she can attest to Thelen’s sentiment: the flow state, indeed, reemerges like a sunrise—gradually but naturally. “I was pretty nervous, and I kind of got back in there, and, you know, took a little bit to warm up,” Daniel says. “But then I felt stronger than I ever have.”
After getting back into training, they both realized there was no turning back. But that’s not a bad thing. “My reason for initially quitting was because of my kids, and now my reason for not quitting is because of them,” says Thelen. Daniel adds, “Your life doesn’t end when you have babies. You can still pursue your dreams.”
Their kids may not remember specifics from Milano-Cortina or previous career highlights, but when they start chasing medals of their own, Thelen and Daniel will know why: because Mom did it first.
Faye Gulini Thelen is set to compete in women’s snowboard cross events beginning on Friday, February 13, as well as in the co-ed mixed team events on Sunday, February 15.
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