August seems to be a bad month for former Olympians and sports stars.
We have already seen reports of a half-dozen former athletes who died recently.
Now we have to add former Olympic swimmer Helen Smith to the list, who was found dead in her sleep after going to bed, reported the Mirror.
She was only 42 years old.
Smith had been on holiday at Lake Coniston to celebrate her brother’s birthday.
She had a great day with the family and had been paddleboarding only hours before she went to bed.
Smith told her mother that she needed to get to bed early because her daughter always woke her up first thing in the morning.
Sadly, it was her daughter who found her mother, telling her father that she would not wake up, with her husband initially brushing it off as her being tired.
Her sister-in-law Nicola Hill explained, "It was Rob's 40th birthday celebration. We had gone as a family. We were all together and then she went to bed and that was it. It was just a massive shock. She wasn't unwell so we can't believe it.
"We are describing it as a nightmare that we are waiting to wake up from. It's just being replayed in your head and not wanting to believe it. She got married in the Lakes at Low Wood Bay, we went there for her 40th and then her hen party too.
"She just loved being there and it always made her happy. She used to take her dogs walking there and we even went camping there. It was somewhere she always said she felt at home."
Smith swam for Great Britain in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
After wrapping up her swimming career, she became an educator at the Worsley Mesnes Community Primary School.
