Right on cue, just as his mum is explaining how the unexpected sight of him instantly made everything bearable when confronted by more Olympic heartache, Tommy pipes up on the baby monitor; the squawks of a premature wake from the morning nap.
“Sorry, I’ll have to stick a dummy in and see if he goes back to sleep,” says Amber Rutter, stepping over Mila the cat – luxuriating on the living room rug – and skipping upstairs to tend to her six‑month‑old son.
She returns a minute later: “Sometimes he can settle himself or sometimes he decides he’s just awake. We’ll see which this one is.”
The silence is fleeting before contented gurgles replace the hush, Rutter casting irregular glances at the screen to check Tommy is OK. Like all new parents, sleep is paramount in her thoughts. The memory of the dreaded four-month sleep regression has not faded, although she recognises her good fortune: Tommy slept the entire return flight from their recent family holiday to Barbados and has started going through the whole night.
Rutter’s Olympic silver medal sits on display in its case next to the sofa, surrounded by assorted baby paraphernalia in her spotless Berkshire home; a reminder of an extraordinary ability for her dual lives as elite shooter and mother to coexist in a way few thought possible.
When she announced her intention to compete at the Paris Olympics little more than three months after giving birth, Rutter, 27, did so with no expectations: “I honestly just didn’t think I would do very well.” That she returned with a skeet silver medal was almost unthinkable.
Yet her remarkable achievement was clouded in controversy in a manner she feared would prove inescapable until the vision of Tommy appearing in the French countryside shone through.
To explain why fully involves going back three years to the Covid‑delayed Tokyo Olympics, when Rutter was ranked world No 1 but forced to withdraw from the Games due to a positive test the night before her flight to Japan was due to leave. It was a crushing blow that almost caused her to quit the sport for good.
When the contentious incident arose at the Paris Games, her first thought was how she could possibly cope again. It was during the sudden-death shoot-off for gold that Rutter was ruled to have missed a shot when footage clearly showed it had hit. On attempting to appeal against the decision, she was informed video replays were not in place at the Olympics despite their regular use at other international competitions. She duly had to make do with silver behind Chile’s Francisca Crovetto Chadid, while millions back in Britain spent their Sunday afternoon in a rage watching live on BBC.
By the time she spoke to the few media in attendance at the Chateauroux Shooting Centre, 270km south of Paris, a sanguine Rutter was eager not to let the dispute take the shine off her achievement. That, it turns out, was Tommy’s doing.
“I was really pissed off but there’s only so much you can actually do in that moment,” she recalls. “I tried to argue it, but when they are telling you to get off the stand if I start kicking and screaming that’s the thing I’m going to be remembered for.
“When I came off I went straight to my mentor, Richard [Brickell], and started doing one of those cries where you can’t catch your breath because all the emotions are flooding in. Full-on waterworks. The thing that went through my mind was how on earth I could live through the ‘what-ifs’ again after what happened in Tokyo.
“It was only when Richard turned me around and I saw James [Rutter’s husband] with Tommy that everything seemed to lift off me. I hated the Olympics for so long that I didn’t want to go down that route again. It’s not about the medal, it’s about redemption. Winning a medal with my son watching me was the closure I needed. That’s how I can live with what happened. My family is the most important thing.”
The acceptance is genuine, and she knows nothing can be done after the event, but the injustice still rankles. Ten days after the final, she addressed the matter on social media, asking for an apology and assurances that such an error will not be made again when the stakes are so high. She has heard nothing from neither the International Shooting Sport Federation nor the International Olympic Committee.
“I think I owed it to all of the girls in that final who were cheated out of a fair result,” she says. “Somebody needs to put their hand up, say they got it wrong and they will learn from it and improve it in the future. That’s what I came out looking for: someone to take accountability. Maybe the letter got lost in the post but nobody even acknowledged it.
“The organisers really messed up. They let not only the competitors down, but the viewers. It makes shooting look so amateur.”
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Rutter’s sole exploit with a gun since was one casual morning firing at clays with her family. Instead, attention has been focused on her ever-growing family, with Tommy the latest addition to a clan that includes Mila the cat, Wolf the rottweiler and a large tank of tropical fish that Rutter explains is looking far murkier than usual on the other side of the room due to a recently added piece of driftwood.
Her diary is increasingly full of public speaking engagements for corporations wanting to learn from her journey, and she launched her own shooting apparel range in September. The original plan had been to “take a step back” from elite sport and not target the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. “But it doesn’t always work like that,” she explains, telling a story of being recognised while swimming in the Caribbean sea as to why she is now more than likely going to continue for the next four-year Olympic cycle.
“From the success you have off the back of a successful Olympics, it’s too big an opportunity to say I wouldn’t do the next one,” she says. “I haven’t made a clear decision but if that reason is important enough to you, that’s why you do it.
“When I first started, it was because I loved spending time with my grandad. Then there were times when I loved winning and representing my country. Now I’m doing it because it’s my job. I have a family to support and I’ve learned to accept it.”
Making the Olympic podium so soon after giving birth remains a source of great pride. She acknowledges that “shooting isn’t like sprinting or jumping”, which allowed her to return to competitive action when most first-time parents would only just be emerging from their newborn cocoon.
“But “I really hope to set an example,” she adds. “I hope it shows that you shouldn’t put off important things in your life like becoming a mum, getting married or any other big life goals. You can make everything work. It might be challenging and very tiring, but it is possible.”
So, presumably, Rutter’s experience means she would not think twice if she found herself pregnant again so soon before sport’s biggest competition?
“I definitely wouldn’t be doing it three months before the Olympics again, I can tell you that,” she says, laughing. “If you wanted to, you can do it. But there’s easier ways. Personally, the next baby is going to be more planned. The fact I managed to make everything work when I wanted it to is something I’m so proud of: to be able to win an Olympic medal, become a mum and get married all without sacrifice.”
A sudden elevation in Tommy’s volume on the baby monitor prompts Rutter to stand up. “Right, I’ve got to go and get him because he’s going to kick off,” she says, heading back upstairs, passing a photograph of her with Tommy in arms after winning the Olympic medal.
It is an image that was never meant to exist, Rutter having given her husband strict orders not to travel to France with their baby for risk of distracting her. Only when she turned around, paralysed by emotion at her lowest ebb, did she realise how grateful she was that he had disobeyed her. “It’s the one and only time I’m so glad my husband didn’t listen to me,” she says. “That moment will stick in my mind for ever.”
