In celebration of the 2024 Summer time Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, GLAMOUR has launched Change The File, a sequence devoted to the ladies of Staff GB, who’re flipping the narrative on what it means to be an elite feminine athlete, from competing on their durations, balancing coaching with being pregnant and motherhood, navigating physique picture pressures, and sure, chasing world information.
Right here, we chat with Lina and Laviai Nielsen, equivalent twin sisters who might be competing collectively within the ladies’s 4x400m relay, concerning the significance of sisterhood, going public with their a number of sclerosis diagnoses, and the key to feeling fierce on the world’s stage.
Like most equivalent twins, Lina and Laviai Nielsen have one another’s backs. In contrast to most equivalent twins, nonetheless, they’re spending their summer season competing within the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Lina and Laviai, who specialise within the 400m hurdles and 400m, respectively, have already needed to navigate the intense highs and lows of elite competitors. Whereas Laviai acquired her Olympic marketing campaign off to a glowing begin, profitable a bronze medal within the Combined 4x400m relay, final night time, she narrowly missed out on a spot within the particular person 400m remaining. “I had full faith and belief I could make it; I felt SO ready for the challenge. I can honestly say I left it all out there last night,” she wrote on Instagram.
The night time earlier than, her sister Lina additionally needed to course of her disappointment after falling on the ultimate hurdle in the course of the 400m semi-final. “I ran the hardest I’ve ever run, with full belief I could make that final,” she wrote on Instagram. “It was the fastest race of my life, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get over that last hurdle.”
Lina obtained many supportive messages, however by far probably the most highly effective was the tribute made by her sister Laviai, who wrote, “Forever proud. That wasn’t the hardest hurdle you’ve had to overcome in your career. Just the beginning of what’s always been rightfully yours.”
She is probably referring to the time when Lina, who was identified with a number of sclerosis on the age of 17, suffered a flare-up forward of the World Athletics Championship in Oregon in 2022, which left her unable to carry out at her finest. Two weeks later, Laviai confirmed that she additionally had the situation, noting that she and Lina needed to be a “beacon of hope” for others experiencing the persistent sickness.
The Olympics are removed from over for Lina and Laviai, who might be competing collectively within the ladies’s 4x400m relay on Saturday. I caught up with them per week earlier than they headed to Paris to learn how they ready for the competitors, the significance of sisterhood in elite sport, and why having enjoyable is all the time certainly one of their principal objectives.
I do know Lina and Laviai get requested it on a regular basis, however I’ve to start out by asking what it is really like to coach and compete alongside your equivalent twin. “It just makes it feel more familiar,” begins Lina. “Going to the Olympics and other competitions can be really lonely – it can feel like it’s you versus everyone else. So having your twin sister there, who is basically a carbon copy of you, it makes it feel like a training day.”
