Australian Diamond and three-time World Cup winner Nat Medhurst said during an interview that her choice to become a mother cost her career. As she claims, “After I was pregnant, technically, I could have still been training, but I was then told I wasn’t allowed in the environment, so just like that, I was removed from the club that I was in, which was a horrible experience.” Regardless of the pregnancy policies many clubs like hers have, the reality is that the vast majority of female elite athletes do not feel supported. Neither in their struggles to retain their physical health, nor in their personal choices outside their jobs. 

Although recovery timelines vary from one woman to the next and should always be supported by her sports organization, many elite athletes have continued to excel professionally during pregnancy and in the postpartum period. Olympian medalist Molly Huddle was still sprinting three days before her pregnancy. She and her colleague, Kellyn Taylor, managed to outshine competitors while their bodies were growing human beings.

Deepak Shukla, a male ultramarathoner and triathlete who owns Pearl Lemon Running, a British coaching company, knows that athletes are pushed far beyond their limits. But the pressure for women is even greater.

When I speak with female athletes navigating pregnancy or IVF, the biggest issue isn’t policy, it’s the unspoken pressure to pretend nothing’s happening. I’ve coached runners who felt they had to ‘hide’ early fertility treatment because it was seen as a distraction. That mindset is ancient. If we can optimise nutrition, sleep, VO2 max, and every micro metric, why can’t clubs normalise fertility cycles?

Throughout his career, Shukla has been a constant observer of discrimination and the demonization of motherhood. “Performance depends on the whole person, not the sanitized version teams prefer to see. And honestly, women have been tougher than any policy I’ve ever seen, so sport needs to catch up, not them,” he told TrooRa.

Despite recent progress in women’s sports, such as the WNBA’s maternity benefits and wage increases implemented in 2020, these advances are frequently incremental and symbolic, emerging from sustained advocacy rather than voluntary action by organizations. Meanwhile, female athletes continue to fight for their right to have a personal life and an intact career with a decent salary. It’s time we take the female athlete’s case seriously and consider what it means about the way we women are systemically treated in this male-dominated world.