INTERVIEW
Game changer
As the Olympics begin, presenter Gabby Logan, 51, talks to us about coping with the menopause and her husband Kenny’s cancer battle
by COLE MORETON
photography
ELISABETH HOFF
styling
CHARLOTTE HANDLEY GREEN
‘Oh yes, I can still do the splits,’ says Gabby Logan confidently, as she gears up to host the 2024 Paris Olympic Games for the BBC. ‘It’s not something I’m training for, I just want to keep doing them.’ The broadcaster was a competitive rhythmic gymnast in her teens and once said her ambition was to still be able to get down on the floor like that at the age of 60. There are nine years left to go.
‘The point is, I don’t want to decline. Now I know from all the amazing experts who’ve come on my podcast that there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do them at that age.’
She certainly looks like it might be possible, sitting straight-backed in khaki combat trousers, a white T-shirt and sparkly gold pumps in the kitchen of her large house in the countryside in Buckinghamshire. Gabby has created a podcast called The Midpoint, gathering wisdom on everything from style to grief from scientists, doctors, psychologists and famous mates such as Davina McCall, Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and former Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp.There is also a new book called The Midpoint Plan and the one message seems to be that it’s never too late to make a positive change. ‘When I do a really good weights session or something, I never feel like it’s for now, I feel like I’m laying down the foundations for later,’ she says.
The book is astonishingly open about her own experiences, even naming the hormones she began taking after suffering from menopausal symptoms such as brain fog, anxiety, insomnia and irritability. ‘I wanted to be as frank as I could. I went on such a lovely voyage of discovery with Mariella Frostrup, who is ten years older than me and was giving me all these symptoms she had been through in perimenopause. I was going, “Oh, I feel a bit like that”.’