BBC's Clare Balding recalls humorous breakfast meeting with the Queen during her childhood
Clare Balding is a well-known face on television and is currently presenting the Olympic Games on the BBC - but she has a very interesting link to the Royal Family.
The 2024 Olympic Games is set to dazzle sports enthusiasts this summer, taking place in the heart of Paris. The BBC will be broadcasting the thrilling events live every day, ensuring viewers won't miss a moment of the action.
BBC One will kick off daily coverage each morning at 8am, with BBC Two also airing sports coverage. Leading the presenting team is Clare Balding, joined by a stellar line-up of broadcasting veterans including Gabby Logan, JJ Chalmers, Isa Guha, Mark Chapman and Hazel Irvine.
Clare Balding, a household name at 53, has been gracing the sports presenting world for decades. Her journey began as a BBC National Radio trainee in 1994, where she covered sports on 5 Live and Radio 1's Chris Evans Breakfast Show.
By June 1995, she was already making her mark on television, presenting Royal Ascot highlights.
But there's more to Clare than her illustrious career. In 2017, she divulged her surprising connection to royalty, having met the Queen through her father, Ian Balding, who trained horses for Her Majesty, reports MyLondon.
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Recounting her unique childhood experiences, Clare shared: "My dad trained for the Queen so growing up, she would come and see the horses, and my brother still does train for the Queen. So she'd come and see the horses about once a year and sometimes he'd forget to tell us that the Queen was coming."
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Clare shared more about the surreal encounters with Her Majesty, remarking: "You'd have that situation where you came back to the house, the Queen was there for breakfast, that was really odd and he'd forgotten to tell us."
She then recalled an embarrassing moment when she neglected to curtsy to the Queen, being too keen to dive into a sumptuous breakfast spread: "I thought it was a bit odd because we weren't having breakfast the way we usually had it, it was all a bit smarter. I was meant to curtsey but I forgot because I ran in and thought 'cooked breakfast, fantastic, sausages!".
The 2024 Paris Olympics can be streamed live on BBC iPlayer.
