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Self-acceptance can be difficult even for those whose hardy, powerful and trained bodies are admired by the whole world. Athletes rarely have an ideal figure, but they know how to truly live in their body. Indeed, without this, achievements in sports are simply impossible.
We are often dissatisfied with ourselves: either the legs are not long enough, or the waist is too wide. In pursuit of modern ideals of beauty, we are ready to torture ourselves with diets and wage an endless struggle with our appearance, in which there are no winners or losers. But there are women who find the strength to admit that it is not easy, but possible, to love yourself with all the shortcomings and become happy.
Amanda Bingson, hammer thrower, 25: “I don’t have the sculpted body you expect from a professional athlete. My arms do not adorn huge biceps, and on the stomach you will not find cubes. It’s important to let everyone know that athletes come in all different types and builds.”
Brittney Griner, basketball player, 24: “I’m over two meters tall, so I’ve always called myself lanky. But I am comfortable in my body, I love my long arms, big hands and huge legs. I like to be different – if everyone in this world were alike, how boring it would be!
Pass the tests
- What sport suits you best?
Ali Krieger, footballer, 30 years old: “I have thick calves. They made fun of me more than once because of them, but I can’t help it – well, I was born with such people. But now girls come up to me and admit that they want the same legs – just think, but we all dream of a body like an athlete.
Natalie Coglin, swimmer, Olympic champion, 32 years old: “I always have a complex because of my hands. Do you know how hard it is to find a dress that is a size 36 at the waist but size 44 at the shoulders? But I understand that my hands are my working tool, they are my strength. Therefore, if for the sake of victories you have to put up with broad shoulders, I am ready for it.
Khatuna Lorig, Olympic champion in archery, 41 years old: “And I love my back! Thanks to archery, I have a beautiful posture, strong back muscles and sculpted arms. When I watch a video from a competition and the cameraman takes a close-up of my back, every time I think, what the hell, how great do I look!
Eli Raisman, gymnast, Olympic champion, 21 years old: “I remember well how I didn’t love my body for big muscles: it seemed to me not feminine enough. But now I understand – it was these muscles and this body that made me a champion athlete. After all, there is beauty in imperfection.”
Based on materials The Body Issue of the sports edition of ESPN Magazine. Photos of these and other nude athletes featured in the ESPN shoot can be seen at magazine MAXIM.
Shante Macmillan, Olympic champion in the heptathlon, 27 years old: “When I look in the mirror, I don’t feel like a slender model, with every workout I become more and more powerful, it’s already right to scream that I’m a monster. But you know what? I feel like the Wonder Woman from the comics, a real superhero who can do anything.”
Gabrielle Rees, volleyball player and fashion model, 45: “When I was in college, I was invited to work as a model in New York. I shot with incredibly beautiful and fragile women, graceful and thin. And then I returned to Florida, to my volleyball team, where the main dream of our girls was to become bigger and stronger. And I noticed that they are much, much happier than those air models. And then I thought that full compliance with modern beauty standards might make you beautiful, but never happy.
Book on the topic
Lev Etingen
“The human body, familiar and unfamiliar. Course of lectures on normal anatomy»
A lively and fascinating story about the human body, about how we are “arranged”. Lev Etingen, MD, has been teaching anatomy to students for over 50 years.