"Old Wives' Tales"

Fortunately these ideas are gradually dying out. Recently, a well-known coach, Percy Cerutty, perpetuated these "old wives' tales" while on a visit to New Zealand. It was unforgivable for Mr Cerutty to do this as he is in a very influential position and many people would be led to believe him and wrongly so.

These prejudices are not scientifically based and when scientific evidence is considered the question of women in athletics takes on a completely different complexion.

The evidence shows that women athletes have less trouble with childbirth than do women generally. In the last Olympics there were several women competing, who were in different stages of pregnancy, and had no ill effects from this top-class competition.

Strenuous training has no bad effects on fertility. Menstruation does not seem to be affected by athletics, as was shown when six gold medals were won in the last Olympics by women in their periods.

There are many other branches of women's sport where the competition is hard and the training is strenuous e.g. basketball, hockey, swimming, where it is thought quite normal for women to participate and yet the effort required is similar to that in athletics.