Motherhood can make you stronger
April 23 rd 2025 - 11:00 [GMT + 2]
“You had to choose between motherhood and professional sport. It was either one thing or the other.” In a recent conversation published by the Laboral Kutxa cycling team, Ane Santesteban captured the false dilemma most women athletes faced in the past when they decided to conceive. Alongside her was sitting a good example of this. Joane Somarriba, Spain’s most decorated female cyclist with one rainbow jersey and two Giro Donne victories to her name, quit racing in 2006 to become a mother. “I started considering it at age 30, right in the prime of my career,” she recalls. “I raced for two more seasons and then retired to focus on motherhood. I had seen first-hand how other riders had to leave their children with their grandparents, how they could hardly spend any time with them, and I wanted something different.” She has no regrets. “My children have given me the best moments of my life.” Her eldest son, Markel González Somarriba, is now a cyclist himself in Equipo Kern Pharma’s feeder team, Equipo Finisher.
Nearly two decades have passed and, luckily, sport in general and cycling in particular boasts a growing list of mothers who have managed to keep a healthy balance between family life and elite competition. Two riders enlisted in the Movistar Team roster, Aude Biannic and Arlenis Sierra, are currently enjoying maternity leaves. Over at Lidl-Trek, a program that has been a landmark pioneer in supporting their riders through motherhood, we find Lizzie Deignan, who was a world champion before giving birth to her first daughter and won the inaugural Paris-Roubaix afterwards. On the same team, Ellen van Dijk took part in the Paris 2024 Olympics less than one year after bringing her son Faas to this world, and stood on the podium of the Amstel Gold Race this very weekend.
“Sports science is still developing its literature on female performance - particularly in relation to motherhood,” explains Josu Larrazábal, Head of Performance at Lidl-Trek. “When structuring the pregnancy of our riders from a performance perspective, we found very little research available, so we turned to interviewing other athletes who had gone through the experience. By listening to their stories, we identified some keys on how to adjust training over the process of motherhood and how different pregnancies could be.” Lizzie Deignan noticed this herself. “I felt I recovered faster from my first pregnancy than from the second one. In my second pregnancy I gained more weight, and felt more fatigue. I couldn’t ride as much, and lost more fitness. Some people say a boy takes a bigger toll on a mum’s body than a girl – and I would agree with that, in my experience!”
In Van Dijk’s case, Larrazábal and the Lidl-Trek staff applied the following strategy: “As her pregnancy progressed, we gradually reduced the intensity of her training while increasing functional work in the gym so she could keep a healthy fitness base.” The Dutch rider kept pedalling until two days before giving birth. Deignan did so the day before going into labor. The aforementioned Aude Biannic reported in the French press that she was preparing for a ride when her water broke. In all three cases, exercise had a positive impact on their pregnancies. Prenatal physical activity is, in fact, widely recommended by gynecologists.
“From a performance perspective, the biggest challenge comes with the postpartum return to regular training,” elaborates Larrazábal. “Weight gain due to fluid retention is common during pregnancy, and it’s important for athletes to manage this without letting it affect their self-confidence. They need to understand there's no need to rush into losing the extra kilos. At the same time, breastfeeding limits how many hours a mother can devote to sport.” Deignan offers a first-hand account: “I couldn’t leave home for more than three hours, because I needed to feed my children. Once I stopped breastfeeding, I had more energy and was able to focus a bit more on my training.” Finding a balance between these two aspects is crucial for the wellbeing of both the baby and the mother-athlete.
The time it takes for a rider to pin a race number on her back again can vary widely. For Ellen van Dijk, it was just five months between the birth of her son and the 2024 Vuelta a Extremadura, where she won the ITT and finished sixth overall. Lizzie Deignan returned to competition after seven months. In other cases, the comeback may take well over a year. “There is often a period of exuberance in the first few weeks after labor,” describes Larrazábal. “Much of the accumulated stress fades away and the rider feels amazing, both physically and emotionally. She assimilates all training easily and experiences some kind of plenitude. In some cases, they can even exceed their previous performance levels. Regardless of whether they surpass their peak or not, our experience shows that athletes can come back to their 100% after pregnancy.”
That last sentence is key: they can, and they do. Motherhood is not a penalty for the athlete, and can indeed make her stronger - not only physically, but also by enriching her with the experience of creating a new life and the bliss of enjoying a family that, with some planning, can well coexist with a competitive career. A recent study published by American Behavioral Scientist highlights the next step in integrating motherhood into elite sport: normalization. Being a professional athlete is not incompatible with parenting. Striking a balance is not an accomplishment reserved for ‘super mums.’ With an adequate support network, every woman can take a break from competition and later return to her previous athletic level. What once seemed exceptional is now becoming the norm.