Korean marathoner's honesty about period pain highlights lingering taboo in women's sports

Park Seo-yeon’s legs were streaked with blood when she crossed the finish line in seventh place in the women’s marathon at the National Sports Festival in Jeju on Sunday. After the race, the 22-year-old wrote on social media, “My period unexpectedly started at the 25-kilometer [15.5-mile] mark. I’d already had it two and a half weeks earlier. […] My stomach felt like it was being wrung out, but I wanted to keep my promise never to give up again.”

Her candor was unusual. Korean athletes rarely speak publicly about competing on their periods, and many have kept menstruation hidden from male coaches and even female teammates, often blaming the pain on an injury or a cold instead.

Park’s post comes as women in sports worldwide take more control over how their bodies are seen and discussed.

A decade ago, a woman athlete’s body was something to be looked at, epitomized by ESPN’s “Body Issue,” which ran nude photo spreads of star athletes every year starting in 2009.

Tennis and golf stars posed in swimsuits, and in Korea, glossy photo shoots of KLPGA Tour players fueled a boom in golfwear fashion. The trend helped recast toned muscle as beautiful. But it was readers, viewers and advertisers — not the athletes — who decided how those bodies were judged.

The first move to draw a line between athletes’ bodies and their marketability came from within the sport itself.

In 2017, the LPGA Tour tightened its dress code under the name of the players’ council president, banning plunging necklines and leggings worn on their own, among other items.

Many saw the rule as aimed at a new generation of players who had built social media followings largely on their looks, drawing fans with posts that often had little to do with their golf.

The tour framed the rule as a statement that players should be judged on their skill rather than their bodies. Critics, however, countered that it amounted to policing what women could wear.

Around 2021, athletes began refusing outright. Norway’s women’s beach handball team was fined for playing in shorts instead of bikini bottoms at the European championships; after public outcry, the International Handball Federation changed its rules. That same year, Germany’s women’s gymnastics team competed at the Tokyo Olympics in full-body unitards to protest the sexualization of the sport.

Ilona Maher of the United States, a rugby sevens bronze medalist, became a social media star during the 2024 Paris Olympics after a video of her shrugging off a commenter mocking her weight went viral.

The push soon turned to periods. In 2023, Wimbledon began allowing female players to wear dark undershorts, its first break from the all-white rule in 146 years, after players complained that white clothing made competing on their periods stressful. Britain’s women’s football team also ditched its white shorts for a darker color.

Some athletes went further and began talking openly about their periods. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui said after a race that she had struggled because her period had started the night before.

In 2022, after Golf Channel reporter Jerry Foltz asked Lydia Ko of New Zealand whether her back problems were a long-term concern, she replied, “I hope not. It’s that time of the month.”

Clarisse Agbegnenou of France, a judo gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, became an ambassador for a period underwear brand, saying she hoped girls in sports would stop hiding their periods by pretending to be injured.

On Oct. 12, Nippon Sport Science University in Japan hosted a talk show on menstruation and conditioning.

As the subject moved into the open, science followed. The U.S. women’s national football team, which won the 2019 Women’s World Cup, tracked each player’s menstrual cycle and adjusted training intensity accordingly. Chelsea FC Women introduced cycle-based training in 2020. 

The old images haven’t disappeared entirely, though, and when they resurface, athletes quickly push back.

Last month, actor Sydney Sweeney, nicknamed “MAGA Barbie” following controversy over her perceived political leanings, appeared nude in an ad for the sports prediction platform Novig, covered only by footballs, basketballs and other sports equipment. British sprinter Amy Hunt responded in a BBC interview right after finishing fourth in the 200 meters in Budapest. Looking straight into the camera, still sweating from the race, she said, “Sydney Sweeney, this is what women in sport look like. Muscles, hard work, sweat, blood, tears.”

When Sweeney appeared to respond by posting old ESPN “Body Issue” covers, which featured athletes posing nude, athletes posted videos of themselves training and competing.

For Korean marathoner Park, most of the post’s comments were supportive, but some criticized her for “pushing too hard,” citing the recent death of a woman in her 20s at another marathon.

In Korea, athletes who speak openly about their bodies are still few, and those who do often face the reaction on their own.

Park has since deleted her post.

BY PARK LIN [[email protected]]