In celebration of the 2024 Summer season Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, GLAMOUR has launched Change The File, a sequence devoted to the ladies of Crew 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, an identical twin sisters who can be competing collectively within the girls’s 4x400m relay, in regards to 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 an identical twins, Lina and Laviai Nielsen have one another’s backs. Not like most an identical twins, nonetheless, they’re spending their summer time competing within the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Lina and Laviai, who specialise within the 400m hurdles and 400m, respectively, have already needed to navigate the acute highs and lows of elite competitors. Whereas Laviai bought her Olympic marketing campaign off to a glowing begin, successful a bronze medal within the Combined 4x400m relay, final evening, she narrowly missed out on a spot within the particular person 400m last. “I had full religion and perception I may make it; I felt SO prepared for the problem. I can truthfully say I left all of it on the market final evening,” she wrote on Instagram.
The evening earlier than, her sister Lina additionally needed to course of her disappointment after falling on the ultimate hurdle through the 400m semi-final. “I ran the toughest I’ve ever run, with full perception I may make that last,” she wrote on Instagram. “It was the quickest race of my life, however sadly, I couldn’t recover from that final hurdle.”
Lina acquired many supportive messages, however by far probably the most highly effective was the tribute made by her sister Laviai, who wrote, “Perpetually proud. That wasn’t the toughest hurdle you have needed to overcome in your profession. Just the start of what is at all times 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 wished to be a “beacon of hope” for others experiencing the persistent sickness.
The Olympics are removed from over for Lina and Laviai, who can be competing collectively within the girls’s 4x400m relay on Saturday. I caught up with them every 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 at all times one in every of their important targets.
I do know Lina and Laviai get requested it on a regular basis, however I’ve to begin by asking what it is truly like to coach and compete alongside your an identical twin. “It simply makes it really feel extra acquainted,” begins Lina. “Going to the Olympics and different competitions might be actually lonely – it might probably really feel prefer it’s you versus everybody else. So having your twin sister there, who’s mainly a carbon copy of you, it makes it really feel like a coaching day.”