The Special Demands of Modern Athletics on Women- a competitor’s perspective.
By Fiona May
Modern athletics by my definition would be athletics that is practised by both sexes at a high level. Now there is the introduction of events: triple jump, pole vault and hammer throw, athletics for women is more complete and an athlete has a choice in what to specialise in.
“It has been researched that the level of women competing or practising sport in general has increased over the past 20 years but also there has been a decline of women practising sport after the age of 21 years.” This is a general view but it can be said that I have noticed that there has been a small significant decline of athletes competing at national levels. At the international level there has been an increase of women competing in Championships. Not only from Europe and Northern America and parts of Oceania but there has been a surge of athletes from African nations such as Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa and also Asia such as China, Japan and even Sri Lanka. Therefore there has been an increase of women competitors.
For example, at the World Championships in Helsinki 1983 it was recorded that 458 women participated. In Athens, more than 10 years later in 1997 there were 709 participants less than a 50% increase. Thus we can conclude that the number of women athletes has increased slowly, but is this enough?
With the aspect of being an individual sport, the problems that occur are more evident, and the introduction of the events that have been mentioned earlier, there are needs which should be met in order to encourage and to aid athletes to compete from national to international level into the next millennium.What I have noticed is that there are specific demands at different stages of an athlete starting from a young age.
I have noticed that there tends to be a high dropout level over the period of 16 up to 21 years. I have seen coaches that coach athletes and push them just to get results, not necessarily training for the future. This leads to injury and/or burn-out, where the athlete has nothing left psychologically and physically to continue. Coaches must educate the athlete that it doesn’t matter if one wins or loses and provide encouragement to obtain personal success – not only material success. Female athletes tend to feel alienated when they train and compete and if they are successful it can also lead to jealousy from their peers. The athlete feels that they are abnormal or being too masculine, or the believe that they will develop too many muscles and look like a man. What is needed is family and friends who give these athletes help psychologically, reassurance that it is perfectly normal to have talent, being successful and being feminine at the same time. Also at this point the use of role models are needed for them to look up to.
I know that there are differences between the two sexes that we have to consider but it can be seen to have been exaggerated, they either work too hard or too little. But there shouldn’t be too much difference so that the athlete believes they are limited. The coach should always regard the athlete as an individual regardless of their sex. They must consider the athletes’ strengths and weaknesses for the athlete to mature.
An example would be my experiences of training. I usually trained by myself as there were not many athletes doing the same event. But my coach was convinced that I needed someone to train with. Someone to motivate me. In the end I trained with a male athlete which helped me to improve.
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