On the occasion of a morning of debates on women’s sport on Monday, the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castera, declared that the ministry was looking into the question of the maternity of high-level sportswomen, to improve its grip into account.
As the case of sailor Clarisse Crémer, deprived of the Vendée Globe 2024 after giving birth to her daughter in November, recently showed, reconciling high-level sport and motherhood remains complicated, despite some progress. The result of a survey conducted two years ago by a working group associated with the Ministry of Sports is clear: a majority (61.6%) of the hundreds of sportswomen questioned believe that it is difficult to become a mother during their career.
“Sport is an environment that remains conservative. There are many preconceived ideas about what women should not do or could no longer do once they become mothers”, Sports sociologist Catherine Louveau told AFP. Fear of a drop in performance, prolonged break in an ultra-competitive environment, lack of support from sponsors, pregnancy is still seen as taking a risk by many athletes who prefer to give up or wait for the end of their career.
“Reassure the sponsors”
Sailor Clarisse Crémer, the fastest woman in history during the Vendée Globe, became a mother last November, but was not selected by her sponsor for the 2024 edition, for lack of a sufficient number of miles covered in the race, impossible to achieve due to her pregnancy. “On will see how to integrate pregnancy into the regulations […] perhaps more to reassure the sponsors than to reassure the skippers”declared, Monday, March 6, Alain Leboeuf, president of the Vendée Globe, during a morning of debates on women’s sport at the house of handball, in Créteil. “There must not be skippers tomorrow who are hostages of a sponsor who would say ‘I don’t prefer to take a wife because you never know'”.
The problem of pregnancy does not only concern France. In May 2019, athlete Allyson Felix, six-time Olympic champion, explained the difficulties encountered with her equipment supplier Nike when she became pregnant. “If we have children, we risk cuts to our income from our sponsors during the pregnancy and afterwards”she had denounced, before launching her own brand of shoes dedicated to the female foot.
Collective agreements are born
In terms of team sports, Fifa took a big step at the end of 2020 by imposing maternity leave on its member countries. Extremely rare a few years ago in women’s football, players opting for pregnancy in full career are more and more daring to take the plunge. But progress remains to be made as evidenced by the revelations, in January, of the Icelandic Sara Bjork Gunnarsdottir. Pregnant in 2021, she had denounced a sudden drop in her salary during her pregnancy and the reluctance of her club, Olympique Lyonnais, to meet the requirements of a young mother on her return to competition.
French handball, which has champion mothers, like Cléopâtre Darleux, is a pioneer. In January 2021, he signed a collective agreement which expressly provides for maternity leave, with one year of salary maintenance. The Women’s Basketball League (LFB) hopes to conclude its own collective agreement on July 1, as players encounter difficulties to reconcile a career at the highest level and motherhood.
Figure of the Blue (147 selections), 2009 European champion and silver medalist at the 2012 Olympics, Isabelle Yacoubou remembers her state of mind when she learned of her pregnancy: “The first quarter of an hour, I thought about having an abortion. What am I going to do? I was afraid to tell my employer.” Now the mother of two children, she regrets having then had to “fight” so that they can accompany him on trips. While she wanted to breastfeed her little girl, born in 2018, she says she was not supported by her then club, Bourges: “The club makes me understand, through the doctor, that it would be good if I stopped breastfeeding to lose weight, resume more intense physical activity. For me, it was non-negotiable”. In the summer of 2022, she leaves the “Tangos” to join Tarbes, where she has facilities to be able to take care of her children, with only one training session per day instead of two, and a collective session fixed at the end of morning so that they can be present after school.
The ministry launches avenues of reflection
But the road still seems long for the sports world as a whole. “Recent news has shown that sports competitions and regulations do not yet take into account the issues related to maternity”, said Monday, the Minister of Sports Amélie Oudéa-Castéra. She launched avenues for improving the situation, including the adoption of a “parenthood criteria” in the aid criteria of the National Sports Agency (ANS) or the extension from one to two years on the registration of the list of high-level athletes for “leave time” Women’s.