Blood, Sweat, and Tears
- Elle Rudd
- Feb 20, 2017
- 5 min read
Heather Watson at the 2015 Australian Open. Image by Flickr Upload Bot on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 2.0)
"I actually remember the day I first got my period. It was really scary because I was just about to go swimming, I was just about to go training and I got into my costume and I looked down and I was like ‘oh my god, I’m dying!'"
Caitlin Clark has been competitively swimming since the age of five, she has competed on a regional level for Worcestershire and Herefordshire, and nationally for Great Britain.
We’re all familiar with at least a few of the symptoms that go along with menstruating - bloating, mood swings, tenderness, cramps, dizziness, fainting and diarrhea. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) believe that roughly 85 per cent of menstruating women experience at least one of these fantastically miserable symptoms as part of having the painters in.
But still, every time a female goes public with this widely known phenomenon, the world goes mad. Scores of people, of both the bleeding and the non-bleeding variety, come out of the woodwork and scream bloody murder (pun intended) because they are disgusted with the frankness of a woman admitting she’s on the blob.
Last summer, Fu Yuanhui announced that the reason she had done so poorly during her Olympic relay swim was that she was on her period. The year before, Kiran Gandhi ran the London Marathon whilst ‘free-bleeding’ through her running gear (free-bleeding is the act of not wearing a tampon or sanitary towel whilst on your period). Both events caused simultaneous waves of praise and repugnance.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the same Olympics that saw Yuanhui bring Twitter to a standstill, 45 per cent of the Olympians were genetically female. Women who presumably have to deal with ‘shark week’ in some way or another.
So, why do we never talk about this biological experience and necessity that nearly half of athletes have to go through whilst training for the world’s most physical competition?
Linda Hicks has been competing as a powerlifter for over 20 years and says that she trains at a ‘real man’s gym’ and ‘it’s just not the place’ for discussing periods.
This comes even after she admits to being very comfortable in discussing menstruation, "I have no problems discussing my period with my husband. I married very recently for the second time and he and I talk about everything. I also have no problem talking with friends. I think this has become easier as I’ve got older. I probably wouldn’t have been so comfortable when I was younger or with my first husband."
She continues: "I’ve never been shamed or made to feel bad about my periods."
Caitlin Clark spoke about the non-biological effects that periods can have: "Y’know there are these times of the month when you do feel bigger, there’s silly things like not being able to fit in your racing costume. That little bit of bloat hanging out the edge could make that little bit of difference in time and performance. When I bloated and I was poolside I felt like I should be able to fit in this costume but I was sat here feeling terrible and self conscious about what I wore on poolside."
During a fundamental. investigation we discovered a gymnast who wished to remain anonymous. She suffers from Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), which is a disease characterized by multiple cysts in the ovaries. Patients with PCOS have abnormal levels of hormones that result in irregular menses, infertility and certain masculine changes in the body.
Carefree Tampon advert. Image by Classic Film on Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)
"I deal with heavy and irregular bleeding that’s hard to predict. Bad cramping and anaemia are also infrequent but not uncommon side effects." Anaemia can sometimes affect fatigue when it comes to sports. Bad cramping sometimes prevented me from going to training sessions but rarely. The bleeding itself never prevented me from attending a session but often felt self-conscious as the leotards I have to wear are fairly revealing."
In intense competition, athletes don’t always get a chance to change their sanitary products regularly and are often wearing skin tight clothing, such as leotards. Alice Williams is a competitive rower for the University of Leicester. "On race days when we can be out on the water for four hours, I worry about accidents which inhibits my performance. I am less likely to push myself for fear of leakages. My worst case scenario is the times when my period is expected but has not yet come as I am reluctant to wear sanitary products as it is unhygienic, but feel totally exposed and uncomfortable in case I come on mid-race or something, because mother nature can be mean like that."
In 2014, Argentinian footballer, Javier Mascherano, nonchalantly revealed that in a heroic tackle which saved the match and helped push his team into the World Cup final, he also tore his anus. So why is this chilling and shocking injury an acceptable point of discussion in sport, but menstruation not?
In an interview with CNN, Karen Houppart, author of The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo, Menstruation, said: "Even grown women in the office, when they make the walk from their cubicle to the bathroom discreetly tuck a tampon or pad up their sleeve or decide whether to carry their purse with them - not to hide the blood itself, but the fact that they’re bleeding."
She continued to say that the reason for this is that historically, the workplace has been perceived as a male space which women have adapted.
This can also be said about sport. It wasn’t until 1997 that the British Amatuer Boxing Association sanctioned the first ever women’s match, and 2012 when women were allowed to competitively box in the London Olympics.
Kimberley Hoyle is a professional dancer and she says she has no problem with menstruation, other than choosing not to wear a white leotard.
"Girls these days are pretty open, especially at a dance school since you’re together for so many hours a day. There’s been stories of girls leaking during ballet class. We all found it quite funny and obviously we sympathised with her too. It’s such a natural thing that I don’t feel there’s a need to be embarrassed about it."
A study by the International Journal of Neuroscience looked at the effect of menstruation on a total of 241 female athletes. They studied examples of menstruating during competitive sports across the disciplines of taekwondo, judo, volleyball and basketball over a range of national and international competitions.
During their competitions, 11.6 per cent of the athletes used the pill, 36.9 per cent had a painful menstruation, 17.4 per cent did not have a painful menstruation, and 63.1 per cent of the athletes said that their pain decreased during the competition.
Linda Hicks says that ovulating was the best time for her to train as it felt like she had an "extra boost of energy to push through" and the days leading up to her period were the worst to train during as she felt "heavier in her movement, and slower and sluggish".
Caitlin Clark thinks that periods present more than just a physical barrier to competing. "I suppose that taboo has just come around from a sort of ignorance about menstruation at a general level but also from this idea that olympians or top athletes are super humans but they’re not, they’re just like everybody else, they just put a lot of work into one certain thing instead of another."
Caitlin Clark talks about getting her first period while at the pool.
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