On the shooting line, Chengdu’s activities are over for the Netherlands' Mike and Gaby Schloesser.
After Mike being crowned the compound men’s archery champion of The World Games 2025 on 9 August, and with Gaby eliminated earlier today in recurve women’s, the end of The World Games competition may have arrived for them—but something entirely new unfolded for the couple this week.
That’s because, for the first time in The World Games history, parenting athletes are being accommodated with their children. For the Schloesser family—Mike, recurve archer Gaby, and their three-month-old daughter, Luna—Chengdu presented a trial for the future rather than just a novelty.
You could say it was an experiment in combining elite sport with early parenthood, but one that was planned, as Gaby—the Mexican-born athlete who won Olympic silver for the Netherlands at Tokyo 2020—revealed that a party of three in China was always in the works.
“It was probably like three to four months into the pregnancy,” she said of when they decided to travel with Luna. “When I found out I was pregnant, I told his mum, ‘Hey, I think you're going to need to take care of my baby for one day because Mike is going to shoot at The World Games, he's coming back, and then I'm going to go To the World Games.’
“Two months later, I was like, ‘You know what, I’m not leaving her here.’ At that moment, we didn't know how it would work or how she was going to be.”
The logistics of travelling with an infant are never straightforward, especially for first-time parents.
Gaby—who qualified as the sixth seed in yesterday’s recurve women’s qualifications—packed her husband’s suitcase with a bag containing both her and Luna’s things.
It was Mike, though, who unexpectedly spent two days tracking down diapers in Chengdu, as an obvious commodity like that proved harder to find in China than in the Netherlands.
“The first day that he was here, he was like, ‘Where should I get diapers?’ Because diapers you can find everywhere, right?” chuckled Olympic medallist Gaby.
“I checked a big mall, a FamilyMart, like everywhere,” added Mike. “It was kind of hard because most people didn’t understand when I asked for diapers. It was difficult, but in the end, we had a friend with connections—fellow archer Sarah Prieels—who ordered them online and had them delivered to our hotel.”
As compound and recurve events didn’t overlap at Qinglong Lake Park, the couple choreographed their schedules like well-rehearsed routines: when one competes, the other tends to Luna.
Although parent-athletes at TWG 2025 did have the option of an assigned caregiver, Gaby admitted that raw emotion as a mother meant Luna being out of their sight was never on the cards.
“I don’t know if it’s a mum thing, but I don’t trust anyone with my kids but Mike. This morning, I sent him a text with tips for today, like, ‘You should do this if she reacts in this way or do that if she reacts another way.’”
“Honestly, I thought it would be harder for me to focus on the competition and practice. When I came back, I was really happy to see her, of course, but it still felt the same.”
Whilst juggling motherhood, Gaby is still adjusting to her body post-pregnancy, comparing how she physically feels to that of “a balloon.”
Her training is now understandably shorter but sharper—not shooting the same volume of arrows, but sufficient enough to feel competitive at an elite competition like The World Games.
Mike’s routine, too, has shifted, prioritising practice on-site at venues of competition—such as last month’s World Cup stage in Madrid, which he won—instead of at home.
“It's funny. Normally, I would never shoot many arrows before my competition, just the official practice,” said the four-time World Cup champion. “I would shoot a couple to get a feel and calm my nerves, knowing I'm good enough.”
“Maybe it's about flipping the switch; taking it easier at home, then making sure I get my reps just before competition starts.”
As it is a big unknown, there is still that unpredictable, nervous, emotional undercurrent shared by the two 31-year-olds, no doubt a sentiment echoed by fellow archery parents such as Braden and Tanja Gellenthien, James and Danelle Lutz, and Brady and Toja Ellison—the latter having travelled with their two young sons to the Olympics.
Their success, however, has also given the Schloessers the confidence to take on such a trip, offering them a head-start insight into what to expect from a life where accomplishing lifetime goals in sport may sometimes compromise family joy. Even settling down at this stage of their careers had its obstacles, particularly for Gaby last summer.
“We thought I wasn’t going to qualify for the Paris 2024 Games, so we thought, maybe now is the moment. I think it was Wednesday or Thursday when we said, ‘Let’s just try,’ and then that weekend, we qualified for the Games,” she said. “It can be difficult for athletes to plan for something like this because you really have to compromise with your goals and what you want to achieve, so we waited, and two weeks after the Games, we were already pregnant.
“I feel like we’re really lucky that happened for us.”
The Schloesser family didn’t just compete this week—they navigated motherhood and fatherhood in real time. There may still be bumps in the road, but so far, it’s working.
The world, therefore, has not only seen sporting fairytales sprinkled around Chengdu the past five days but proof that parenthood and performance aren’t mutually exclusive—they can be partners.
The future of elite sport is inclusive, adaptable, and even a little bit playful when you add diaper hunts to the mix