Leading golfer, Lydia Ko left a male reporter floundering for words when she candidly explained the reason for her physiotherapy session during the final round of the Palos Verdes Championship this week.
Golf Channel’s Jerry Foltz asked the 25-year-old about the tightness in her back and hips after she was filmed being treated and whether she thought it would be a long-running issue.
“I hope not,” Ko replied, adding “it’s that time of the month. I know the ladies watching are probably like, yeah, I got you. So, when that happens, my back gets really tight, and I’m all twisted. It’s not the first time that Chris has seen me twisted, but it felt a lot better after he came. So, yeah, there you go.”
Foltz appeared stumped by her open response, and awkwardly responded, “thanks”.
Ko laughed off the exchange, calling Foltz out. “I know you’re at a loss for words, Jerry. Honesty it is,” she said.
It’s not the first time a female athlete has spoken openly about their menstrual cycle to a journalist, but it’s still bizarrely perceived as a taboo topic despite how many are impacted.
When an interviewer found Fu Yuanhui, a Chinese swimmer at the 2016 Rio Olympics grimacing and keeled over after her race, they asked her about the pain she was experiencing.
“Actually, my period started last night, so I’m feeling pretty weak and really tired,” Fu told the reporter in Mandarin. “But this isn’t an excuse. At the end of the day, I just didn’t swim very well,” she added.
It’s critical that professional female athletes continue to speak up about this normal health challenge, especially in light of an alarming trend of women and girls leaving sports prematurely.
PUMA and Modibodi recently commissioned a global survey that investigated the reason girls leave sport, discovering that 1 in 2 teens skip sport because of their period and for many girls, sport stops because of embarrassment, pain or fear of leaks during their period.
The survey insights also showed how the culture and lack of innovation around periods is holding girls back from participating in sport.
“Periods shouldn’t stop young girls from participating in sport. These are numbers we need to address, to keep girls in sport longer”, AFL Collingwood star, Sabrina Frederick says.