They’re off and running now. And like most parents with a toddler at home, there’s hardly a moment’s rest for Tiffany Porter and her husband, Jeff, trying to keep up with their soon-to-be 2-year-old daughter, Chidera.
“She does not walk,” Tiffany said, laughing. “She runs everywhere. Literally, everywhere.”
Luckily for these parents, though, they’ve been training for this their entire adult lives, from All-American track careers at the University of Michigan to multiple Olympic berths for both. And it didn’t take long after “Chi Chi” was born back in July 2019 for Mom — formerly Tiffany Ofili, an Ypsilanti native — to resume her own chase, one she hopes her daughter will grow to fully appreciate one day.
Already, Chidera has an inkling, tagging along to training sessions, learning to say the words “track and field” and reveling in the age-old starter’s command: On your mark, get set, go!
And here goes Mom again. Last month, the 33-year-old Porter qualified for her third Olympics by winning the women’s 100-meter hurdles at the British Athletics Championships in Manchester, England.
She and her younger sister, Cindy (Ofili) Sember — another former Michigan track star who’ll be running in her second Olympics in that same sprint-hurdle event in Tokyo later this month — both compete internationally for Great Britain, as they’ve held dual citizenship since birth. (Their mother, Lillian, was born in London and their parents — father Felix is Nigerian — lived in England for years before moving to the U.S.)
At the 2016 Rio Olympics it was truly a family affair, with Tiffany and Cindy reaching the final in the women’s 100 meter hurdles — Cindy finished fourth, missing a bronze medal by .02 seconds — while Jeff, a 2007 NCAA champ for the Wolverines, made the semifinals in the men’s 110 hurdles in his second and final Olympic appearance with Team USA.
He retired after Rio, and Tiffany was contemplating a similar career choice as the couple planned to start a family.
“I went into pregnancy knowing that there was a possibility I might not ever get back to my top form,” she said. “And I was OK with that. I was OK with stepping away from the sport. That gave me the freedom to enjoy this new chapter.
“In the back of my mind, I always thought, ‘Hey, I could come back.’ But I never put any pressure on myself, nor did Jeffrey. We just decided we’d take it one day at a time.”
Back in the running
Six weeks was about all it took before Tiffany headed out the door for her first long run, though. And it wasn’t long after that the couple started having serious conversations about the long road back to competitive racing. Especially since Jeff, who works as an alumni relations director for the UM athletic department, had transitioned into a coaching role for the friendly sibling rivals.
“I started with the question: ‘Do you want to do this?’” Jeff recalled. “Tiffany said yes. And I said, ‘Well, before you answer the question, you have to understand, what we’re getting ready to do is gonna be hard. Harder than anything you’ve ever had to do before. …There’s gonna be some days that you’re gonna hate me for what I put your body through. There’s gonna be days where you’re wondering, ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’”
But Jeff also told his wife he believed she could do it, because he knew better than anyone the competitive drive his wife possessed. And because “from the time she went pro, I’ve always said Tiffany is one of the most talented female hurdlers I’ve ever seen.” Three Olympic berths and eight world and European championship medals back up that assessment.
Tiffany returned to racing in January, less than six months after the birth of Chidera. But soon after that came the pandemic, which ultimately forced the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics until this summer. It also forced athletes like Tiffany, who’d initially planned to retire after Tokyo, to reassess their plans. Ultimately, she and her sister, who’d suffered a career-threatening Achilles injury in 2017, chose to view the extra year as an opportunity, of sorts.
“To be honest with you, I went into it saying, ‘Hey, you have no choice: You can’t go run the Olympics in 2020 by yourself,’” Tiffany said. “But in hindsight, I can certainly say that it has been a blessing in disguise.”
It gave the 26-year-old Sember more time to “rehab properly,” and it gave Tiffany more time to improve her fitness and get more races under her belt.
Still, it required a little creativity to do any of that. Jeff used the early months of the shutdown to create a weight room in the Porters’ basement, and with UM’s facilities closed last spring, the sisters bounced around to area tracks or grassy fields and hills for their outdoor workouts.
Mothers' message
The racing returned last summer, but so did the travel and hectic schedule that comes with it for Tiffany, who also works as a staff pharmacist for CVS near her home in Canton. (She's on a leave of absence this summer for the Olympics.) So those days where a 6 a.m. workout was followed by an 8- or 10-hour shift at the pharmacy took their toll, physically and emotionally
“Honestly, I think a lot of mothers will talk about mother’s guilt,” she said. “And I think that looks a little bit different for everyone. But it is something that I had to maneuver through. … To say that I was busy was an understatement. But I think for me, one thing that really helped was knowing that I have this incredible support system and so many people in my corner who are rooting for me and genuinely want to see this work.”
She knew her daughter was in good hands when she was away, with Jeff and her cousin Jordan looking after Chidera, and grandmothers lending a hand when needed. But Tiffany also discovered she was in good company herself among track’s elite.
“It’s like once you become a mom you enter into this mommies club,” she said.
Fellow competitors like Nia Ali, who won a silver medal her Porter’s event in Rio only 15 months after giving birth. And Allyson Felix, the U.S. star who’s headed to her fifth Olympics at age 35 with a 2½-year-old daughter in tow. Or Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican “Mommy Rocket” who’s vying to become the first three-time Olympic gold medalist in the women’s 100-meter dash and already won a world title as a new mom.
Felix was among the high-profile U.S. stars two years ago that pressured Nike to stop cutting sponsorship money for pregnant athletes. But these track moms help each other in many other ways, offering advice and tips as well as encouragement and inspiration.
Perhaps the most valuable advice Tiffany says she got was “just to give yourself grace” and avoid getting caught up in comparing post-pregnancy timelines. And now she feels as if she’s reaping the benefits of that, along with her husband’s training plan.
In March, the sisters took silver (Sember) and bronze (Porter) in the 60-meter hurdles at the European Indoor Championships. In April and May, they both posted outdoor times that rank among the top 10 in the world this season. And in late June, with an Olympic bid on the line, Porter set a stadium record in winning the British trials going away, while Sember finished third.
“That one really meant a lot for me," said Tiffany, who'll run one more pre-Olympic tuneup Friday in Atlanta — Cindy will race next week in England — before joining the British team in Japan later this month. "As an athlete, when you’re kind of in the middle of competing, sometimes you don’t savor those moments and appreciate them as much. But when you step back from the sport like I did … it just hits a little bit differently. It’s like, ‘Wow, I’m doing this now at 33 years old, and as a mom, alongside my sister and my husband and coach. It’s just a new fire.”
And a different motivation, Tiffany says. On the tough days while training, Chidera “just brings everything back into perspective,” a constant reminder that “there are so many other things that are so much more important.”
“But she’s also my greatest motivator, because I’m doing this to show my daughter what can be achieved when she works hard and lives with integrity,” Tiffany said. “I want her to know you can chase your dreams and make sacrifices and achieve whatever you want to in life. So it is bigger than me at this point.”
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