The Pressure That Makes Olympians Perform Worse | Dominique Condo | TED

00:044:35 am, the alarm goes off. 5 am, a 50K training ride. 6:30 am, a strength session, often fighting through muscle fatigue and sometimes even period cramps. 8 am, breakfast, with a nutrition plan calculated to the gram. 9 am, off work or university.

00:33Because many female athletes juggle jobs or study with their sporting careers. Now that's a fairly typical morning for many elite female athletes. Strong, disciplined, driven and constantly measured. Isn't the female body extraordinary? It adapts.

01:00It endures. It creates life. It recovers from injury, responds to training and achieves feats of skill, strength and power once thought impossible. And yet, in 2025, women are still judged more for how they look than for what they can do. Judged more for how they look than for what they can do.

01:27At the top of their game, up to 70 percent of elite female athletes report body image concerns. You heard me, up to 70 percent. Now this is women with Olympic medals, premiership trophies, world records, and still they feel the pressure to look a certain way, which is often at direct opposition with how they need to build their bodies for competitive success.

01:54Now this topic is such a passion of mine because I live and work in this space every day. I am surrounded by some of the most intelligent, hard working, resilient women in sport. Women who can outrun, outlift and outthink most people in the room, and yet they battle a world that comments on their appearance before their capability.

02:21How is this fair, I ask you. At the top of her game at world number one, Ash Barty walked away, choosing to define success on her own terms. Elite Olympic gymnast Simone Biles reminded the world that mental and physical well-being are performance foundations, not weaknesses.

02:43And here in Australia, AFLW players are juggling work, study and public commentary about how they look in their uniform when all they want to do is play. Why is this still happening? Why are we so comfortable judging athletes on aesthetics?

03:02And what are we going to do about it? Now this talk isn’t just about elite athletes. It's about what happens when performance and appearance collide. Yes, in sport, but also in schools, in workplaces, and even in our own homes. When we celebrate appearance over capability, we send that message to our daughters, our sons and our colleagues that how we look matters more than what we do.

03:31And that doesn't just hold athletes back. That holds all of us back. So to start to make a real difference, we have to understand where the pressure and commentary comes from in the first place. Now let's talk about the sources of pressure.

03:48Some are external. The uniform that feels exposing, the commentator that talks about how she looks before how she plays, the constant scrolling through social media of the perfect body. And others are internal. The comparison of skin folds between teammates.

04:07The coach that says, "You need to be leaner" with very little context. And the athlete herself, chasing unattainable goals. And then there is language, the invisible force that can fuel or fracture performance. I once worked with an athlete who crumbled after being told, “You’re too heavy to compete.”

04:34That same athlete later thrived when the conversation was reframed to “Improving your repeat sprint ability will give you a competitive edge. Let's get to work on a training and fueling program and make that happen." In sport and in life, language is not just communication, it's a performance tool.

04:59Research has shown that even subtle word choices from coaches, parents and peers can significantly impact an athlete’s confidence, motivation and even risk of disordered eating. The words that we use are the stories that athletes tell themselves.

05:19Now I'm going to talk about quite a taboo topic of physique. Now I know this might be controversial, but here we go. Physique matters. At the highest level, different sports require different builds. Lean mass for power in football, strength-to-weight ratio in gymnastics, lighter frames for endurance.

05:43So no, in elite sport, we should not ban body composition assessment because if used correctly, it is an invaluable performance tool. However, the damage occurs when those numbers are used as an identity. The public weigh ins, the comparison between teammates when measurement is used as punishment.

06:07That's when science becomes shame. And we've all seen the fallout. Serena Williams, 23-time Grand Slam champion, was told her power made her look too muscular. AFLW player Tayla Harris was body shamed for an image that should have been celebrated as pure athletic brilliance.

06:30And even Olympic champion Emma McKeon has spoken openly about the pressure of appearance in swimming. So the take home? Yes, physique and performance may be linked, but appearance should never overshadow capability. So what happens when the balance tips the wrong way?

06:51Well, athletes can under-fuel. And from here, we see the cascade of events. Hormonal dysregulation, menstrual dysfunction, fatigue, bone loss, slower recovery. The result? Performance declines, strength plateaus, injuries mount. And this isn't just specific to athletes.

07:14Think about your own life. When was the last time you skipped a meal, trained exhausted or didn't sleep well? Did you perform better? Well neither do they. Except their livelihoods depend on it. Prolonged low-energy availability has been shown to reduce power output, endurance capability and decision making.

07:39And that is why we cannot separate body image from performance. So is this all doom and gloom, or how do we fix it? Well we build environments that are performance-focused and athlete-centered. So what does that mean? Well it means education in fueling, in energy availability, in menstrual health, and not just for athletes.

08:05For coaches as well. It means individualization because optimal body composition is specific to the individual athlete. Language protocols that are private, functional and constructive. And choice in testing, in uniform and in timing. And here's the thing.

08:30When we do these things, performance improves. I've seen teams transform. Confidence rises, engagement lifts, results follow. And this is not about lowering standards or wrapping athletes up in cotton wool. It's about raising awareness so we can pursue that excellence safely, intelligently and sustainably.

08:57Now some sports are leading the way in this space. IOC safe sport initiatives and professional organizations like Swimming Australia, who have invested in education, language training and measurement standards. But it takes everyone, coaches, administrators and the public.

09:16Now you might still be sitting there thinking, really? What does this have to do with me? Again, this is not just about elite sport. All of us have felt the weight of appearance in some way. For women, that might be to be smaller, thinner, more feminine.

09:36For men it may be to be taller, bigger, more masculine. Think about it. When was the last time you compared yourself in the mirror, at the gym or online? Praised for losing weight when no one is actually asking if you're happy or healthy? Or took 20 photos before posting one because you didn't like the way you looked?

10:04Now imagine that pressure times by a thousand. Your body constantly scanned, discussed and linked directly to your contract. And men aren't immune to this either. Research has shown that male athletes and teenagers also struggle with body image.

10:23Maybe not to be thinner, but to be broader, stronger, more muscular, more defined. Different pressure, same story. The reality is, we're all living under performance expectations shaped by appearance. But for young women getting into sport out there, I want you to know your body is not the barrier to success.

10:47It is the vehicle that will get you there. So what's the takeaway? That it's time to redefine female performance not by size, shape or aesthetics, but by power, capability, confidence and resilience. For coaches and parents, use language that builds.

11:09For teachers, focus on effort and progress. For fans, celebrate strength and courage and not appearance. And for friends and colleagues, notice when you praise looks over capability. Because words shape beliefs, beliefs shape behaviors, and behaviors shape performance.

11:31When we shift the conversation, we don't just create healthier athletes, we create stronger performances. And outside of sport, we create a society where women feel free to show up unapologetically, just as they are, and still perform at their best.

11:50Thank you. (Applause)