Le Court-Pienaar is helping to break the taboo around so much as talking about menstruation in sport.
Cor Vos
Your legs just feel heavy, the body feels bloated. The fatigue consumes you. These are just some symptoms of a woman on her period. Female athletes deal with this monthly. Could you imagine having to put up with it whilst winning the pinnacle of cycling achievements? Kim Le Court-Pienaar did just that.
On Stage 5 of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift, the Mauritian, riding for AG Insurance Soudal, took yellow. Directly after the win, she said to the media, “My legs didn’t feel too good today. It’s that time of the month for me.”
The leader of the general classification was frank and unafraid to discuss a topic typically taboo.
Cycling has a tainted past with women, and with the natural function of women’s bodies; there was a long period of time where the sport wanted to halt the natural function of a woman’s body. The menstrual cycle was deemed inconvenient. Too feminine. Former professional cyclist, Marijn de Vries, told road.cc, “It was crucial that you didn’t menstruate.”
Times are changing, and the menstrual cycle has become a performance metric. In the same Road.cc article, Justine Ghekiere told the audience her period is something she tracks with her coach. It has become a marker for health and performance. A useful tool. Slowly, it is becoming less taboo.
Ghekiere’s teammate Le Court-Pienaar’s comments have helped normalise this concept. This is probably the first time someone’s menstrual cycle was talked about in the context of a yellow jersey-winning performance.
Le Court-Pienaar is breaking the taboo.
Escape Collective asked Le Court-Pienaar what her motivation was for speaking about the subject.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope