Maternity in sports must be brought into modernity Despite maternity leave and salary protections, pregnant athletes still face job insecurity

Zoé Mineret Staff Writer

The past decade has seen remarkable progress in protections for pregnant athletes.

In 2020, FIFA and the Women’s National Basketball League (WNBA) introduced mandatory paid maternity leave. The Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) also has paid maternity leave and maintains that no player can be released from their team due to pregnancy.

These protections, however, are not enough. Many players who get pregnant see their lives and careers permanently altered by mistreatment from both teams and sponsors alike.

Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, a former midfielder on the Olympique Lyonnais’s women’s team (Lyon), wrote a piece for The Players’ Tribune outlining the mistreatment she faced from the French club throughout her pregnancy. The club purposely withheld her salary and did not provide her with any form of support.

Gunnarsdóttir sued Lyon through the Fédération Internationale des Associations des Footballeurs Professionnels. Despite winning the lawsuit and having the club pay her lost salary in full, the move illustrated that even when the necessary rules and regulations are in place, players are still forced to fight for financial security.

Gunnarsdótir’s mistreatment is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. Athletes who become pregnant are regularly cast aside and treated like pariahs by their clubs and sponsors, who act as though pregnancy marks the end of an athlete’s career.

Track athletes Allyson Felix and Alysia Montaño both wrote essays for The New York Times exploring the mistreatment they dealt with at the hands of one of their sponsors, Nike, when the company learned of their respective pregnancies. For Felix, they proposed a 70 per cent pay cut when renegotiating her contract, while Nike elected to put Montaño’s contract on hold entirely.

With salaries for women athletes often being unsustainable, sponsorships are vital to their ability to compete at the professional level. The treatment Felix and Montaño endured at the hands

Know Your Athlete: Donna Ntambue

Julie Ferreyra Contributor

Continued from page 1.

Growing up, Ntambue’s focus was always on basketball, even though she preferred track. Coming from a family of 12, several considerations factored into her decision to start her university athletics career at the University of Utah, with the main one being the financial accessibility of competing in both track and basketball.

“I was young, I had to make a choice for myself and for my family,” Ntambue explained. “If I [went] to the States, it [would] be easier for my mom and for my dad. I knew that with basketball I would get a scholarship.”

However, the American experience was not what she expected, nor what she wanted. The pressure and competitiveness of the collegiate basketball circuit were not worth it for Ntambue. When it came down to it, she had to put her well-being—both mental and physical—first.

“When I was actually in the States, which was my dream, I realized that it wasn’t really what I wanted [....] It’s like, yeah, it’s not greener on the other side,” said

Ntambue. “My basketball coach kicked me out of the team last year [...] because I wasn’t doing well mentally. I came back from an injury and she forced me [...] to come back faster because they needed me. And after that, [...] I couldn’t do it anymore.”

When it came down to it, the decision to continue track was obvious. Running was always Ntambue’s first love. But the choice to quit varsity basketball proved to be more difficult.

“I never stopped basketball in my life, it’s been my whole life,” Ntambue admitted. “I thought ‘I’ll be nothing’, all my best friends are basketball players.”

Ntambue’s adaptable mindset when it comes to competition and performance, however, is exactly what allowed her to be successful in her pursuit of track as a singlesport athlete. The key was to be kind to herself.

“I wouldn’t [have been able to] come back if I was being hard on myself,” Ntambue told me. “It’s just [being] more gentle [...] I am still doing the work I have to do, but I’m more like, just have fun with it and just do your best because it didn’t work with me being hard on [myself].”

Ntambue explained how running allows her to clear her head and led to the realization of Nike reflects the sports world’s hypocrisy towards pregnant women. Pregnant athletes are celebrated in public as superheroes by clubs and sponsors but treated as disposable behind the scenes.

In 2021, Nike released an advertisement celebrating the toughest athletes of all: Mothers. The ad depicted various pregnant people doing physical activity and branding them as the epitome of athleticism. The company gets to directly profit off the promotion of pregnant athletes while simultaneously offering dehumanizing pay cuts to the pregnant athletes they sponsor.

The insincerity of clubs and sponsors directly impairs the physical and mental health of athletes who are expecting. Often, a sponsorship renewal is dangled in front of pregnant athletes on the condition that they get back to their pre-pregnancy fitness level as soon as possible.

The precarity brought about by the stigmatization of pregnancy within sports is not only career-threatening— it can be life-threatening as well. Kara Goucher, an American long-distance runner and Olympic silver-medallist, exposed herself to severe health risks due to over-exercising after her highrisk pregnancy because Nike told her they could renew her contract if they saw satisfactory results from her during races.

As seen in the case of Gunnarsdótir, even when regulations exist to protect athletes, clubs will still try to take advantage of them. Pregnant athletes cannot risk exposing themselves to long-term physical or mental health problems for the sake of abusive clubs and sponsors. Not only does this affect the trajectory and health of their pregnancy, but it can also create long-lasting problems for their future athletic careers.

If clubs and sponsors want to see athletes in their greatest physical shape after pregnancy, they need to start taking care of them during those nine months. Rather than piling on undue emotional stress, athletes should be provided with a variety of resources and support by their clubs and sponsors, who have a duty of care toward them. Athletes are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, not simply toys that can be thrown away if they are not deemed bankable.

Already Breaking Records On The Track

that she prefers individual over team sports.

“[When I’m running], I’m free,” she said. “I’m just running [....] I don’t have time to think that’s so much better for me [....] I don’t have to depend on my teammates [....] I don’t mind being a team, but I’m more introverted.”

The increased pressure that came with her recent success at the McGill Team Challenge doesn’t stress Ntambue out like it used to. Instead, she welcomes it.

“I think pressure is a privilege,” Ntambue explained. “Not a lot of people get to have pressure [....] I’m really really here for the pressure because I know that all I’ve been doing, what I’ve had to do, my work ethic, it’s been towards that.”

After putting up a new McGill record in the 60-metre race last weekend, Ntambue hopes to get back to a point where she can represent Canada internationally, just as she did in 2018 at the Buenos Aires Youth Olympic Games for track and for the Team Canada under-16 International Basketball Federation Americas Tournament for basketball.

“I did it before,” Ntambue said. “That’s for sure my goal because I love the maple leaf. Who doesn’t love the maple leaf?”

SCOREBOARD VARSITY SWIMMING: RSEQ FINALS

WOMEN’S: First Place, 1017 points

MEN’S: First Place, 933 points

COMBINED: First Place, 2010 points

MAJOR AWARD WINNERS:

Isabel Sarty, Athlete of the RSEQ Championship Meet and Swimmer of the Year

Pablo Collin, Athlete of the RSEQ Championship Meet and Swimmer of the Year

Tristan Schanz,

Peter Carpenter,