Motherhood and Olympic aspirations are no longer mutually exclusive. Olympic moms are everywhere these days, balancing workouts one minute, a kid on their hip the next.

US swimmer Dara Torres. British marathon runner Paula Radcliffe. Soccer players Kate Markgraf and Christie Rampone. German gymnast Oksana Chusovitina. Chinese weightlifter Xian Dongmei. All moms. All world-class athletes near or at the top of their game.

US Christie Rampone (L) runs with her daughter Riley as she celebrates her team's victory over Japan in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games women's football semi-final match US vs. Japan, on August 18, 2008 at the workers' stadium in Beijing. [Agencies]

All have come to prove that babies don't spell the end for elite sportswomen.

Perhaps becoming a mother even helps.

"It just brings a whole new dimension to your life. The transfer over makes me a happier person running. It also helps you see things in perspective sometimes," Radcliffe, the 34-year-old marathon world record holder, told Reuters.

Radcliffe, who was training 12 days after giving birth to daughter Isla in January 2007, missed out on an Olympic medal for the fifth time on Sunday as her patched-up body failed her.

Torres, 41, snapped up two silver medals in the pool at Beijing on Sunday, beating an Australian rival 25 years her junior, before turning her attention back to her 2-year-old daughter Tessa.

"The other girls were talking about going backpacking or going to Bali, but I get back on Tuesday evening and on Wednesday morning I have to take my daughter to school and I have a list of school supplies I have to get," she told reporters.

World record holder Paula Radcliffe and her daughter Isla.

A study on mothers in elite sport by Massey University in New Zealand, presented to a sports management conference last year, found the number of mothers involved in high level sport had increased in the past decade but did not give numbers.

But the jury is still out on whether physical changes during pregnancy can boost aerobic capacity and enhance women's performance after giving birth, or whether the mental impact of childbirth is a factor in increased post-child performance.

The idea that women's running performance improves after childbirth is sometimes called "the Ingrid myth" after Norwegian marathoner, Ingrid Kristiansen, who won the Houston Marathon in 1983 just five months after her first child's birth.

Dutch athlete Fanny Blankers-Koen was the Olympic trailblazer for mothers. The 30-year-old mother-of-two, dubbed "the Flying Housewife," won four gold medals in London in 1948.

The numbers have swelled since. At Beijing the US team alone has 20 mothers among its 286 women athletes.

Chinese Judo champion Xian Dongmei and her daughter Liu Jiahui. [File photo]

The first female athlete and mother to win a gold medal at Beijing was Chinese 32-year-old judo champion Xian.

"What I want most right now is to have a good rest and stay with my little daughter," a tearful Xian said after her win. "I want very much to make it up to my daughter."

Brazilian beach volleyball player Ana Paula Connelly was sad at being knocked out on Sunday but looking forward to seeing her son Gabriel, 7, who has lived with her sister for the past year.

"Last night I spoke with my sister and she said ‘Go get a medal'. Then my son came on and said ‘Mum, I have to tell you something. I love you more than all the medals in the world,'" she said, tears welling up in her eyes.

Chusovitina, 33, the only woman gymnast to appear at five Olympics, used to compete for her native Uzbekistan but moved to Germany to save the life of her son who was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukaemia at the age of 3 in 2002.

"My son is my whole life," she told Reuters in a pre-Games interview. "I know every mother says that. But our bond is special. When he was ill I was devastated. He's my motivation."

Torres was happy to be a role model for mothers in sport.

"What I have done is show them that you can do it," she said.

Agencies