BLONDE bombshell Laura Woods channelled her inner Pamela Anderson by wearing a daring high-cut swimsuit in our exclusive photoshoot.
Speaking to Fabulous' Celebrity Editor Kelly Allen, the ITV Sports pundit 35-year-old sports presenter revealed the greatest challenges she's had to overcome in her career.
Laura arrived to the shoot looking fresh-faced - despite getting home from Glastonbury Festival just hours before.
“I’d never been to Glastonbury before,” she says. “I knew it was going to be cool but I didn’t know how cool — it was amazing.
"We couldn’t get out last night though, it was carnage. I ended up walking for an hour down this country lane in the dark carrying all my bags. I got home at five o’clock this morning!”
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However, it's good training for when Laura will form part of ITV’s presenting team for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
While the tournament is taking place in Australia and New Zealand, Laura will be in England reporting from the studio with a very anti-social time difference.
“We’ll get our work done, then hopefully sit in the sun and have a little nap and enjoy the rest of our day. That’s the positive way of looking at it,” she says.
The excitement surrounding the tournament is a sign of how big the women’s game has become, boosted by the England ladies lifting the Euro 2022 trophy at Wembley last year.
“I’ve always found women’s football to be really accessible. I love that about it," she says.
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"Sometimes in sport, we get a bit separated from the superstars and I don’t feel like we have that separation in the women’s game.
"When you go to the games, it’s really different to men’s football. It’s quite family-orientated and the atmosphere in general is really fun and welcoming.
“The standard is growing quickly as the rest of the world catches up, and I’ve been excited to be a part of it. We just get excellent pundits and the shows are fun.
"The biggest compliment that I could pay is that when I turn up to any game, the production, the input… everything is exactly the same as it would be for a men’s football game — it’s the same level of professionalism behind the cameras as it is in front. It’s done very well.”
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I was part of a rugby team that was mixed, but I was one of the only girls in the club
Laura Wood
Laura is particularly pleased that it’s turning a whole new generation of girls on to playing sport.
“There wasn’t a girls’ football team when I was at school — if you wanted to play football, you would tag along with the boys, and that wasn’t always allowed,” she says. “I was part of a rugby team that was mixed, but I was one of the only girls in the club.
"You always felt a little bit like you’re playing a boys’ game, rather than your own game.
"That can be quite off-putting when you get a bit older and become more self-conscious about being a girl running around with the boys.
“It’s so different now. My little sister is 14 and she is part of a girls’ football team. It’s so different, but so normal.
"Everybody who works in women’s football wants it to be like that. They don’t want it to feel like it’s a token gesture. It’s just a sport that we want to play and we also want to watch.”
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“Spain will always do well, in my opinion,” she says. “Germany is definitely always a danger. USA, even though the team’s getting a little bit older, they are quite far ahead of other countries in terms of their development.
She adds: “With England, we have a number of injuries — the timing is quite heartbreaking.
"But the England team has a lot of strength — our bench is always stacked full of talent — so I do have this feeling that although we’re going to miss a lot of big players, there will be a coming-of-age of others, like Lauren James.
"You’ve seen a bit of her already, but she’s going to be a superstar. There’s something about her that is very, very special.”
It was unbelievable — I’ve never felt anything like that. It was just such a relief
Laura Wood
Laura knows a thing or two herself about blazing a trail in what was a traditionally male-dominated arena. In 2020, she joined talkSPORT’s flagship breakfast show, co-hosting alongside Ally McCoist from 6am to 10am.
She’s since gone on to scoop multiple awards for her coverage, including Best Speech Breakfast Show at the ARIAS in 2021, before recently deciding to step down. Her last show aired on June 28.
“I really tried not to cry doing the announcement, because I just didn’t want to let the emotion take over,” she admits. “It was a really hard decision [to leave] but those hours are brutal, and I felt like it was the right time.
"People say it’s important to go out on a high, and the breakfast show is in a great place at the moment.
“The last time I spoke to Fabulous in 2020, I’d just started on the show and I was feeling swamped.
"It was in the middle of Covid and there was no actual sport to talk about. It was the biggest challenge of my career, and of my life at the time.
"I was living on my own and I felt very isolated, very lonely and like I couldn’t show the world what I could do with that show. I didn’t have any of the tools I needed, but I learned to work through it.
"Then sport came back. It was unbelievable — I’ve never felt anything like that. It was just such a relief.”
She certainly is leaving on a high after winning over their 3.6 million listeners, who were worried about her replacing seasoned pro Alan Brazil.
“I definitely think it’s made me a more confident person and brought me to where I am now,” she says. “It’s such a cliché, but just being yourself is your biggest strength.
"It’s the only thing you have that separates you from anybody else, so having that time in that space to grow into myself and be my own person was a gift that I didn’t know I was being given at the very beginning, so I’ll miss it a lot.”
ITV’s coverage of the FIFA Women’s World Cup starts on Thursday July 20.
