ORMilan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics. Francesca Lollobrigida, just finished the 5000 meters of speed skating on ice, look up at the stands, he looks for his two year old son and hugs him. The image immediately went around the world. «I hadn’t seen him for a week and I wanted to hug him. He wanted his mother” he will later say. Public opinion was fascinated, almost amazed. Yet, in that scene, nothing was truly unexpected. The gesture, in its spontaneity after days away from home, was nothing exceptional. Nor the value of the athlete. Lollobrigida, after all, had already won 16 world titles in roller skating and, at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she had won a silver and a bronze, even before becoming a mother. The story that followed that moment, however, shifted the focus. From the sporting feat itself, i.e. the medal, to the personal condition of the athlete, almost to suggest that being mothers and athletes is the extraordinary performance.
Mothers and athletes: it is possible
«We know that by now the birth of a child is not an obstacle to a high-level sporting career» clarifies Luisa Rizzitelli, president of Assist, the national athletes’ association which has been dealing with rights in sport for 26 years. «But determination and resilience, however essential, are not enough. For an elite career to continue, appropriate conditions are needed. Specific care and preparation, economic stability, qualified staff (sports doctors, gynecologists, endocrinologists, physiotherapists, trainers) and tailor-made training programs.”
Where these conditions are present, the results speak for themselves. As the journalist Donata Columbro observes, recalling «a research conducted in 2021 by Coni, the Italian National Olympic Committee, together with the Artsana group (Chicco). Out of 55 Italian Olympic athletes who had children during their career, one in two returned to international levels after maternity leave; 40 percent got on the podium and 30 percent won a gold medal.”
Athlete-mothers in the vortex of rhetoric
«The problem, however, is that these conditions are not guaranteed for the majority of athletes» warns Rizzitelli. «And then talk about athlete-mothers as if they were beings capable of incredible things is a lexical trick that covers decades of inattention towards women’s sport». Journalist Mara Cinquepalmi, author of the book, is of the same opinion Taboo. Of women, sport and information (Augh! Edizioni): «Athlete mothers almost always end up in the vortex of rhetoric on motherhood, a story that emphasizes sacrifice and the personal dimension, but overshadows concrete aspects such as the scarcity of protection».
The knot of contracts
If the return after maternity depends on specific factors, one of the first to consider is the contract. As Rizzitelli clarifies, «in Italy professional status is recognized, from 2022, only to female footballers. For the majority of athletes, even high-level ones, the classification remains amateur: this means working with a VAT number or collaboration contracts. Even in the face of a daily and all-encompassing commitment, the legal framework remains fragile.”
The exceptions are land athletes included in military sports groups or state bodies: one of the few contexts in which economic stability, salary, protection and contractual continuity exist. It is not surprising, therefore, that many of the athletes who have continued to win after becoming mothers come from precisely these groups: in fencing Arianna Errigo, Elisa Di Francisca and Valentina Vezzali; in athletics Eleonora Giorgi; in triathlon Alice Betto. Francesca Lollobrigida herself is enrolled in the sports group of the Air Force.
The athletes’ maternity fund is not enough
To strengthen protections, some tools have been introduced in recent years. The Athlete Maternity Fundactive since 2018, provides a contribution of around one thousand euros per month for a maximum of 12 months for non-professional athletes. However, it still remains a limited measure: «Due to stringent requirements, only 77 athletes benefited in the first five years» underlines Rizzitelli. Only recently some federations, including the Fip (Italian Basketball Federation) and the Fipav (Italian Volleyball Federation), have introduced partial support measures.
If the bodies of female athletes remain an enigma
The factors that make this return possible, however, do not only concern contracts. There is another level, less visible but equally decisive: knowledge of the female body and the ability to manage it appropriately.
«Gender sports medicine is still developing». This is explained by Francesca Conte, a sports doctor who collaborates with the national athletics team, with the Under 20 women’s national basketball team and with the women’s national volleyball team.
«A recent study, published in PubMed, highlighted that over 70 percent of the literature in sports medicine is based on male athletes». As a result, the staff of the women’s teams often operate without specific references, forced to adapt training models designed for different bodieswithout taking into account the anatomical, biomechanical and hormonal peculiarities of the athletes.
«The limit emerges with particular clarity in moments in which the body goes through profound transformations, such as puberty and pregnancy, when hormonal balance and muscular structure change». This lack of knowledge is reflected not only in daily practice, but also in the regulations governing the sport.
That time Serena Williams at Roland Garros
In the book Fundamentals. Stories of athletes who changed the game (66thand2nd), edited by Giorgia Bernardini, the journalist Elena Marinelli recounts an emblematic case: «In 2018, on the occasion of Roland Garros, the tennis player Serena Williams wore a skin-tight suit also designed with a medical function. After the pregnancy, in fact, she had had blood clotting problems and that compressive fabric helped prevent them. Yet, that clothing came deemed “inadequate and against the rules”».This was not an isolated case.
Serena Williams in 2018 at Roland Garros (Photo by Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)
«Even today, although we know that the specificities of the female body – from the menstrual cycle to pregnancy and post-partum – can directly impact performanceare not yet systematically integrated into the assessments that guide sports practice” concludes Conte.
Signs of change, also in Italy
In recent years, however, some signs of change have begun to emerge. Some clubs, such as Futbol Club Barcelona, have started to study the impact of the menstrual cycle on performance and on the risk of accidents, adapting workloads accordingly.
Also in Italy something is moving. Some athletes have started to talk openly about menstruation, breaking a long-ignored taboo: the swimmer Benedetta Pilato she said that at the 2022 World Championships in Budapest, despite winning gold in the 100 breaststroke, she was not in her best condition because she was in the premenstrual phase. In women’s football, during the 2022-2023 European Championships, some national teams, starting with England, obtained changes to the uniforms to overcome the problem of white shorts during period.
Some progress has also been made in terms of protection: today the clause which provided for the termination of the contract in the event of pregnancyand it is no longer possible to end a relationship for this reason, as happened to Lara Lugli, the former volleyball player sued for damages by her company after the termination of her contract because she was pregnant (the summons was later withdrawn). A significant change, which marks the first recognition of the rights of female athletes. The road, however, remains long. As long as conditions continue to be unequal, returning after motherhood will be perceived as an exception and not as a real possibility.
