Irish athletic champion gives birth to a baby girl
Derval O’Rourke, former champion hurdler for Ireland has given birth to her first baby with husband Peter O’Leary.
The 33-year old athlete from Cork, retired from international sports last year and made her pregnancy on twitter on Mother’s Day this year.
Happy Mother's Day from myself, my furry babies and my little bump pic.twitter.com/kcQN5fi0vH
— Derval O'Rourke (@DervalORourke) March 15, 2015
Speaking to The Herald last year she explained she wasn’t going to consider starting a family until after she had finished competing.
"You definitely can't jump hurdles being pregnant. We both want kids but I think I'll have to retire before we think about it,” she explained.
On Sunday she took to twitter to announce her baby news. She welcomed her little girl Dafne O’Leary to the world a few days ago and thanked the hospital staff.
Hugely grateful to all the amazing staff in CUMH. Delighted to welcome baby Dafne O'Leary to the world a few days ago.
— Derval O'Rourke (@DervalORourke) August 3, 2015
She and Peter married in 2013 after they met on a flight back to Ireland from China. They had both been competing in the 2008 Olympics at the time.
Derval is a two-time European silver medallist but her biggest triumph was in Moscow in 2006 when she won a gold medal at the world indoors.
Earlier this year Derval had hit out at how long it was taking to upgrade her 2013 bronze medal from the European Indoors and said the appeals process “isn’t fair on clean athletes”.
Since she has retired she also released a cook book, Food for the Fast Lane, filled with all the tips and tricks she used to help her achieve her gold-medal wining status. She described her book as:
“It's very much a home cook book. For me it's eating really tasty healthy food every day. It’s about a lifestyle and I wanted to make the book quite personal to me."
Congratulations to the happy family!
