When two-time Olympic hurdler and mother Nikkita Holder heard that there would be a private children’s nursery in the Paris 2024 Olympic village, her eyes welled up.
“Honestly, I’m not even going to lie, it makes me a little emotional,” Holder, whose final race was in 2018, told CBC Sports. “To have that would have been tremendously amazing and it’s exciting to know that women can now have a dream and still be a mom at the same time.”
Holder gave birth to her son in 2013 and went on to win a bronze medal at the 2015 Pan American Games, and later advance to the semifinals of the 100-metre hurdles at Rio 2016. She is quick to note her incredible family support during her athletic career, but she certainly would have benefited from resources within the system as well.
“As a track athlete you have to budget for so much. You have to budget for your living expenses, you’ve got to budget for your nutrition, for your supplements, for your shoes, all your gear,” Holder said. “If we got help with childcare as well, then I think that would alleviate so much stress.”
Holder’s experience is not unique. While the opportunity for Olympian parents to access a nursery may indicate progress at the Games, many women athletes continue to feel under supported, under-resourced, and underfunded during their family planning and motherhood years.
Which is why, amidst the countdown to Paris 2024, a group of equity-seeking Olympians are teaming up to create a better Olympic experience for women as they navigate pregnancy, motherhood and women’s health.
Providing resources
With the help of the OLY Canada Legacy Grant, Canadian lightweight double sculls rower Jill Moffatt, along with a roster of fellow athletes, has founded MOMentum, an online platform which will house resources regarding pregnancy, postpartum, egg freezing, IVF, carding policy updates, and legal support.
“When it comes to every National Sport Organization, I kind of realized it’s very wild west,” Moffatt told CBC Sports. “A big thing that we see in the research and experiences is there is not a lot of information on what the best practices are. So a lot of women lean on other women, which is really great, but ideally we can provide these resources in one place.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) says that although there are some consistent rules that apply to all federally funded national team athletes, each sport defines its own funding and selection criteria.
“For each Games we are ready to work with a national sport organization to support an athlete’s ability to compete and care for their infant child,” a representative from the COC said. “Over the past several Games the Canadian Olympic Team has been majority female, and although we have had very few requests for support with childcare, pregnancy, and family planning during the Games, we have been proud to support and advocate for those who have asked.”
WATCH | Moffatt started MOMentum to help support athletes with family planning:
Canadian rower Jill Moffatt started MOMentum after realizing that elite Canadian athletes weren’t supported enough in family planning by their sport organizations.
The COC is handing out a total of $100,000 in funds across the 15 recipients of the OLY legacy grant this year and says it’s proud to support MOMentum in its mission to demystify family planning for athletes.
The organization adds that it also supports the development of a national female athlete health strategy through the work of the Chief Medical Officer of Health and Wellness and the Sport Medicine and Advisory Council.
In addition, MOMentum’s goal is that by Milan 2026 it will have raised enough funds to provide Olympians with grants to cover off related costs.
Equity for Olympian moms at Games time
For Kim Gaucher, three-time Olympic basketball player, more resources would have saved her a lot of hassle when she made her postpartum return to sport.
Ahead of Tokyo 2020, Gaucher, who is also a part of MOMentum, turned to the Internet for help when COVID-19 restrictions prevented her then-breastfeeding daughter from attending the Games.
A few weeks after Gaucher’s story went viral, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) responded, announcing that babies of breastfeeding mothers would be allowed into Japan for the Games.
“The stories that I had that flooded my inbox were crazy, the instances where women felt they didn’t get the same kind of opportunities because they announced that they were pregnant,” Gaucher told CBC Sports. “I think it’s one of the things that pushed me to not shy away.”
A similar breakthrough was announced ahead of Paris 2024. In February, the French National Olympic and Sports Committee committed to provide French breastfeeding athletes with hotel rooms after some athletes, including judoka Clarisse Agbegenou, asked for better support this summer.
“It’s so inspiring that France has a few female athletes that are like, ‘hey, you need to make my life easier’ and they stepped up and they’re doing it.” Gaucher said.
WATCH | Moffatt hopes organization can work toward creating equity:
Elite athletes are sometimes left to their own devices when it comes to navigating their organizations policies when it comes to pregnancy and family planning. Jill Moffatt is working to change that.
Gaucher hopes that every athlete will receive this kind of support in the future, and that MOMentum will fill that gap going forward.
“I think just being able to have all the information in one place, being able to have mentorship from fellow female athletes that have done it before with your timeline, to encourage you to answer questions, concerns, all of that is huge,” she said.
Normalizing women’s health conversation
In addition to making the mom-athlete experience better, MOMentum aims to support all the unique female experiences.
“This isn’t just for mom’s looking to come back and compete,” Moffatt said. “We’re looking at, what does it mean to be a woman athlete in Canada and what does it mean to have support throughout your career and afterwards?”
One of the ways MOMentum will do this is by connecting athletes as “peer-to-peer” resources to one another.
Athletes like wrestler Erica Wiebe, a Rio 2016 gold medallist, who shared on Instagram her experiences around the decision to freeze her eggs as she transitioned into retirement, are helping to start the conversation.
“I think there’s lots of aspects around women’s health that are just as poorly understood, and then even more poorly shared and communicated,” Wiebe said. “And so I think normalizing the experience, and being open with it to bring awareness for other women, especially with high-performance female athletes, is really important.”
In lending her voice to MOMentum, Wiebe will be helping other athletes as they navigate similar life milestones.
“It’s just really important that there’s an opportunity for these women to share stories and share resources, particularly around high-performance female athletes and their experiences through their health, having kids, and coming back to sport afterwards,” Wiebe told CBC Sports.
Moffatt is also aiming to provide grants ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics for athletes to cover costs, like bringing children to the Games, for example.
“Financial burden is a massive barrier. So being able to reduce that stress around major Games would be ideal for us,” Moffatt said.
That’s encouraging news to Holder, who is now a mom of two and an entrepreneur.
Noting that “the future is female” and feeling encouraged by the growing movement towards providing better support for women athletes, Holder joked about returning to competition.
“It makes me want to go put my spikes back on and come out.”
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