Latest news with #JessicaEnnisHill
The Independent
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Idris Elba unveils Mobo paving stone at college where he ‘got to dream bigger'
Actor Idris Elba has unveiled a commemorative stone from Mobo at a London college that helped him 'dream bigger' as a student. On Friday, Elba, 52, who hails from Hackney, and is most known for his acting roles in BBC drama Luther and US crime series The Wire, returned to Barking and Dagenham College, which he attended as a young person. His stone forms part of the Paving The Way award, issued by the Mobo organisation, which supports talent in music, film and TV and holds an annual awards ceremony celebrating excellence in black music and culture. The award celebrates cultural pioneers who have made a lasting impact in the arts, with Olympian Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and comedian Sir Lenny Henry among the recipients. The award winners are asked to choose a location for the stone that holds a deep personal meaning, with Elba choosing the college where he studied performing arts. The event, which included a Q&A with the students, took place inside the college's Idris Elba Studio — a professional film and TV facility named in his honour. Asked by a student if he had ever imagined how successful he would become, Elba said: 'I mean, yes, I think to be here in the first place, you're already imagining what the future can be. 'And so I was always thinking about what success might look like. 'I didn't know how to get there, but I could see it. I could see it on the silver screen. I could see it in my idols, Eddie Murphy, I saw it everywhere. 'But the truth is, what kept me grounded, what kept me focused (as a student) is being in a facility where I get to fall down, get up, fall down, as many times as I want, and I literally found this place, we all did, as a haven, a safe space to actually, not only imagine yourself being a movie star, but try it and fail, and try it, and fail. 'The thing about dreaming is that it happens on a 24-hour cycle. 'So every day I got to come back here, I got to dream bigger. I got to, definitely learn and sharpen how I was going to get there, and that's really important.' Elba unveiled the stone alongside Mobo Awards founder and chief executive Kanya King. It reads: 'Mobo. Paving the way for the next generation. Idris Elba. 'Don't get labelled, labels are for cans'.' Alongside his acting career the film and TV star performs as a DJ and has campaigned against knife crime.
Daily Mail
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Dame Laura Kenny gives birth! Olympian welcomes a daughter with her husband Jason as couple reveal sweet name after years of fertility woes
Dame has welcomed a daughter with fellow Olympian Jason Kenny after years of fertility woes. The sports star took to Instagram on Monday as she posted an adorable snap of the new born with her older brothers Albie and Monty. Sharing her sweet name she penned: 'Three's the magic number. Lilian Joyce Kenny Born on 4/5/25 at 10.44am. Weighing 8.0lbs.' She joked: 'Can't stop calling her, him. There was only ever one name we had in mind for a daughter. A mix of both our Nan's names. 'Our beautiful little family is complete'. Laura has been very open about her fertility struggles after she previously revealed elite sport may have caused her 'out of control' body to suffer a miscarriage. Sharing her sweet name Lilian Joyce Kenny, she penned: 'Three's the magic number' Dame Laura, Britain's most successful female athlete, boasts five gold medals and a silver from three separate Olympic games. She says she 'gave 100 per cent' to every training session and race for more than a decade, even questioning if she had worked hard enough if she did not throw up after a workout. But her commitment may have had an impact on her fertility, she has revealed. After marrying fellow cycling phenomenon Jason and welcoming their first child in 2017, she miscarried in November 2021 and had an ectopic pregnancy five months later. This occurs when a fertilised egg implants and grows outside of the womb - usually in one of the fallopian tubes - requiring emergency surgery. 'Everything was a shock - I went from being so in control of my body to being so out of control,' she told Radio 4's Today programme. 'Was my body just running on empty, and then it said, 'Well, hang on, there's no way we can do this?' While she successfully gave birth to another son, Monty, in July 2023, she had started to talk publicly about her baby losses. She took to Instagram on New Year's Eve to share her pregnancy news, posting a video of her children wearing T-shirts that read 'I'm going to be a big brother to a baby'. Laura captioned the post: '2024 was wonderful, 2025 is going to be even more special.' She was congratulated by other sporting legends, with swimmer Rebecca Adlington writing: 'Congratulations ❤️❤️'; and heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill commenting: 'I knew it ❤️ congratulations to you both'. Other athletes soon revealed they had been through the same thing - raising questions as to whether elite sport could have a damaging impact on fertility. Dr Emma O'Donnell, an exercise physiologist at Loughborough University, said the lifestyle of a professional athlete puts a unique strain on the human body. Laura, who suffered a miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy went on to welcome her sons Monty and Albie - Albie was born in 2017 and Monty in 2023 Training at their level burns an incredibly high number of calories and as a result, athletes often have very little body fat. If they don't eat enough food to fuel their workouts then issues with menstrual cycles - such as periods stopping for months or even years - are 'very common', Dr O'Donnell said. The leading idea if that having a baby is so energy-intensive that the brain shuts off reproduction if it thinks there isn't enough spare energy available, she told the BBC. In the UK around one in every 90 pregnancies is ectopic - the equivalent of around 11,000 per year. While it is still unclear why they occur, inflammation and scar tissue in the fallopian tubes can increase the risk. Professor Geeta Nargund, a consultant at St George's Hospital and medical director of Create Fertility, said she doesn't see a 'direct link' between sports and a higher risk of an ectopic pregnancy. However, she said there was a potential link between too much intense exercise in the first three months of pregnancy and miscarriage. During a chat with Women's Health in June, Laura opened up about how the heartbreak of her miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy completely changed her mindset and she was left wanting a baby over any sporting medal. The cyclist, who announced her retirement from the sport back in March, confessed she found herself frustrated with her body as she could her push herself to incredible physical heights, yet she couldn't have a baby. What is an ectopic pregnancy? An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside of the womb, usually in one of the fallopian tubes. The fallopian tubes are the tubes connecting the ovaries to the womb. If an egg gets stuck in them, it won't develop into a baby and your health may be at risk if the pregnancy continues. Unfortunately, it's not possible to save the pregnancy. It usually has to be removed using medicine or an operation. In the UK, around 1 in every 90 pregnancies is ectopic. This is around 11,000 pregnancies a year. Source: NHS She told the publication: 'I cannot tell you how sad I was for a year to 18 months. I mean, you could ask Jase how I was, I was a different person. 'I just went within myself because it was consuming. And all I wanted was this little baby; I didn't want gold medals, you know, I didn't want to go and race in the Commonwealth Games. I wanted a baby. And it just wasn't happening.' Before the birth of her second son and a year after her ectopic pregnancy Laura won a silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games but admitted she didn't find happiness in the win. She explained: 'I was like, why will [my body] do that and it won't do the one thing that I just want the most... 'I felt like I was living in this yin and yang world where you could only have one of them. 'And when you're an athlete who has had so much control over their body for so long, it literally just felt like the carpet had been ripped out from underneath me because all of a sudden I wasn't in control of it, and there was nothing that I could do.' While she added that she doesn't want to label her sadness at the time as depression, she confessed: 'I'd hate to put a label on myself, but that was the lowest I've been – 100%. It was mentally the toughest period of my life.' Laura also opened up about how the miscarriage affected her husband. 'No one asked him if he was okay, and how he was feeling,' she explained. 'And so I guess I totally underestimated how much I was using him and how much I was talking to him and never actually saying, "Jase, are you actually okay yourself?" 'And it wasn't until quite a long time after could even tell me how bad it was for him, too.' Back in March Laura explained she had made the decision to hang up her bike after struggling to spend time away from her children and the sacrifice of leaving her family at home. Speaking about the struggle of balancing both elite sport and motherhood she admitted that it is doable but it comes with sacrifice, and she wasn't 100% at her best for the Tokyo Olympics. 'It it comes with sacrifice. And you've got to be prepared for a non-perfect I think I went into Tokyo absolutely 100% at my best? No, of course I don't. 'Because rest days weren't rest days and any time I was at home, I wasn't sat on the sofa like Jase and I used to be. I was out on the trampoline, I was playing in the do I think it was harder? Yes. [But] it doesn't need to be incompatible.' Discussing the birth of her second child, Monty, Laura said he completely changed her mindset as an athlete. She explained: 'I felt so privileged to be able to have been pregnant again and then bring him into the world [that] I was just struggling to leave him. 'I couldn't leave him for training sessions because, why would I? All I wanted was him.' Laura admitted she left her son Albie at home dur to Covid protocols during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and found it 'heart-wrenching'. 'I'm not really a the only time that Albie ever remembers Mummy crying is when I had to leave him to go to the Olympics. 'And it just felt like someone literally ripped my heart out and was just throwing it away. It was awful. I remember messaging Jase when I was in the [Athletes'] Village, just saying, 'I hope that I never feel like this again.'
