{"id":20436,"date":"2021-07-30T14:57:55","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T13:57:55","guid":{"rendered":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/?p=20436"},"modified":"2021-07-30T14:57:55","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T13:57:55","slug":"what-we-can-learn-from-female-athletes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/what-we-can-learn-from-female-athletes\/","title":{"rendered":"There’s Resilience in Us All: What We Can Learn From Female Athletes"},"content":{"rendered":"

This blog is part of the series \u201cThe power of the female athlete.\u201d View the complete series at the links at the end of this article.<\/em><\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

As the Olympic Games continue in Tokyo, Japan, female athletes are holding the spotlight, and not just from a competitive standpoint. When it comes to political and social demonstrations during the Games, 2021 is the year of women. Female athletes are championing racial equality and taking ownership of what they wear during competitions.<\/span><\/p>\n

The challenges that Olympians face help them develop qualities that enable them to compete against the best. You’ll usually find these are the same traits of successful female employees. Women from various sectors outside of athletics, including the tech industry, can learn valuable lessons from these talented athletes. Lessons they can incorporate into their own lives and work.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Naomi Folkard: Motherhood makes you stronger\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

Team GB’s Naomi Folkard had plenty of preparation to do before she flew to Japan to take part in Tokyo 2020 earlier this month. But perhaps her most crucial task was pumping and freezing 80 bottles of breastmilk for her five-month-old baby Emily, who had to stay behind in the UK.<\/span><\/p>\n

Babies were part of a ban on relatives travelling with athletes until organisers ruled at the beginning of this month that “nursing children” could accompany their mothers “when necessary”. For Folkard, though, it was too late to change her plans.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Folkard, a champion archer, is one of a record number of six mothers on this year’s Team GB. To some extent, this should not be news, because mothers have competed in the Olympics since the 1900s, when women were first allowed to take part. Yet it is significant because there has long persisted a stigma that motherhood and elite sports are incompatible, that an athlete’s career will be derailed by having a baby.<\/span><\/p>\n

The lesson: Women can pursue ambitions while pregnant or as a new mother<\/b><\/h3>\n

Dr Claire-Marie Roberts is a chartered performance psychologist who works with Olympic and Paralympic athletes. She began extensive research after working with three Olympians who wanted to have a baby between two Olympics.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The stress involved, some of the sort of structural inequalities in their sports, and just the sheer lack of concern was stark and shocking,” she says. Then there’s the societal judgement of athletes such as the British former long-distance runner Paula Radcliffe who received abuse from the public and press for spending extended periods away from her children to train and compete, even though they were with their father. “There’s that increased pressure,” says Roberts, “because mothers are perceived to be the only possible caregivers.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, more female athletes have been speaking out about how children and top-tier sports can co-exist with the right support. At this year’s Tokyo Games, the double Olympic champion Helen Glover already set a record by becoming the first mother to be selected for the Team GB Olympic rowing team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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