VIDEO. She fights to democratize motherhood in professional sport

“Often, we make our career, and then we have children.” Cléopâtre Darleux is a professional handball player. She is one of the rare players to have had a child during her career and, a year after giving birth, to have won gold at the Olympic Games. motherhood in sportswomen.”The vision of motherhood among sportswomen, I would say, is rather that it doesn’t exist, that it’s problematic, it’s just questions“, she explains. To support her point, she points in particular to the strong presence of men in this environment. “The coaches are men, it’s also run by men, the presidents, the managers, it’s really almost only men. There are almost no women in this environment“, develops Cleopatra.

For Cléopâtre Darleux, motherhood often comes at the end of a sporting career and not during it, which is not the case for men. When she became pregnant, Cleo’s entourage was very happy for her, but she still had to face a number of comments, especially from the side of her club’s management. “You could have told us when you signed your contract, before signing, that you wanted to have a baby“, she heard. “I had this feeling, as if I had made a mistake“, says Cleo. Her nine months of pregnancy allowed her to rest her body after twelve years of playing without the slightest stop. “I have stored up fatigue“, explains the sportswoman.