Article: When I was too skinny for my own good
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Article was written by Sarah Cowley Ross for the LockerRoom
16 November 2021
In a candid column as part of our Out Into the Open series on female athlete wellbeing, Olympic athlete Sarah Cowley Ross talks about her personal encounter with RED-S, and learning how to fuel her body differently.
In elite sport, millimetres matter. For execution on the training field and in competition, a millimetre could be the difference between clearing the bar in the high jump, flying cleanly over a hurdle or being flagged for a foul in the long jump.
For a lot of performance sports, a millimetre around the waistline can matter as well.
The conversation about an athlete’s weight doesn’t go down well in female athlete circles at times, and the prioritisation of athlete wellbeing versus performance can be difficult to navigate.
As a former Olympic heptathlete and high jumper, my body composition was something I was acutely aware of from a performance perspective.
My power-to-weight relationship had a dramatic effect on my performance. As I said, millimetres matter when you’re jumping over 1.90m.
But it’s the way you get to the point as a female (or male) athlete that has a significant bearing on the degree of success. And it needs to be discussed.
Throughout my sporting career, I didn’t always get it right.