International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board and Paris 2024 created a dedicated space for children, creche, for the first time in Olympic history.
When marathon runner Aliphine Tuliamuk traveled to the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, she was determined not to leave her six-month-old daughter, Zoe, behind. The unique circumstances of the Games, held during the Covid-19 pandemic, meant that the marathon took place in Sapporo, northern Japan. Tuliamuk was able to be with her family, except for a distressing first night when she stayed at the athletes’ village in Tokyo, where children were not allowed and there was no creche.
As a result, she spent one night separated from her breastfeeding baby. “The first time I ever slept without Zoe was in the village. Zoe and my husband stayed in a hotel. That was really hard,” Tuliamuk told the media. “I was so engorged. I was pumping and thinking, ‘My baby is not even here with me.’ Then I called them, and she was crying, losing her mind because she didn’t understand why her mom wasn’t there.”
Tuliamuk, born in Kenya and now an American runner, is pleased with the new provisions for nursing mothers and child carers at Paris 2024, including a dedicated space for children–creche in the athletes’ village. “I am just so happy that in only four years from when I couldn’t be with my baby, it’s now changed to where they have facilities for them. That is pretty incredible.”
Like many sporting mothers, Tuliamuk grappled with the issue of when to stop breastfeeding. The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund recommend exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life and continuing to breastfeed alongside adequate food until at least two years old. “I was going to breastfeed for three or four months, which would still give me about two and a half months before the Olympics,” Tuliamuk explained. “But once my daughter arrived, I realized that stopping breastfeeding was not on the cards for me. It was just something I loved so much.”
These experiences prompted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) executive board and Paris 2024 to create a dedicated space for children for the first time in Olympic history. “We’re taking a lot of lessons from Tokyo and the previous Games and we want to constantly improve the athlete experience,” Emma Terho, chair of the IOC athletes’ commission, told media. “We have more and more athletes that have very young children, and mothers that are continuing their careers quite soon after giving birth. They can concentrate a lot better on competing if there is a facility of creche that enables them to have a child with a caregiver close by at the Olympic Games.”
Nursing mothers and child carers can expect the creche to offer space and privacy for breastfeeding mothers to pump and store their milk, as well as nappy changing facilities and play areas. Overnight accommodation is available outside the village if national Olympic committees (NOCs) agree to fund it. Terho, a former Winter Olympian, says there is a booking system for those who need it most. “We wanted to make sure there is this creche where they [competitors] can be in quiet and privacy, still able to focus on probably the highlight of their career,” she said.
Tuliamuk recalled that the Sapporo marathon site in 2021 was not set up for nursing mothers. After a late change to the start time because of the heat, she could not express her milk in the hotel. “I got to the starting line where we had a tent for Team USA, but there was no place to breastfeed or pump,” she said. “I would have needed to go to the bathroom and pump, but I just ran out of time. It would have been nice if there was a private tent, but nobody was thinking there might be athletes who are breastfeeding.”
A collaboration between the IOC athletes’ commission and its Paris 2024 equivalent, with support from now-retired 200m Olympic champion Allyson Felix of the United States, helped get this initiative off the ground. French judo star Clarisse Agbegnenou, a two-time Olympic champion, also advocated for better provisions at her home Olympics, having breastfed her baby, Athena. “It hurts me to hear people saying ‘We can do only one thing at a time,’ ‘You can’t evolve in your job,’ or ‘You can’t be a high-level athlete while being a mum,'” Agbegnenou told Olympics.com.
American middle-distance runner Alysia Montano, founder of the group &Mother, has been a vocal advocate for better conditions, contracts, and sponsorship for sporting mothers. Montano famously ran at the 2014 USA Nationals in Sacramento while eight months pregnant. “I felt that we haven’t seen what it looks like to be a woman in my career, to visibly see her being pregnant, having her babies, and continuing her career, so I’m just going to do it,” Montano told media. After giving birth, she faced challenges such as finding ways to continue breastfeeding while traveling. “I won nationals at six and 10 months postpartum,” she explained. “I won a World Championship gold medal. We broke an American record. I figured out ways to pump my breast milk and pack it up and get it back to my daughter in the States when I would travel. And I realized there’s no system that’s actually supporting this. This is why it’s so difficult.”
With her own experiences in mind and those of the women she supports, Montano sees the Paris 2024 offering as a step in the right direction. “We have been super loud advocates of what is needed, with our goals of supporting all Olympic athletes, knowing this is a major stage for the entire world to see how it’s done and what the blueprint of success can look like.” One of the biggest hurdles for nursing mothers who seek to make use of the overnight accommodation will be convincing their NOCs to fund the cost. The IOC’s Terho says the organization is looking at this for future Olympics but first needs to monitor the take-up in Paris. For campaigners like Montano, more needs to be done ahead of Los Angeles 2028. “I’d like to see that stadiums are safe with respectable lactation accommodations on the track, in our warm-up area, having a space with electricity to be able to pump your breast milk and know there is a safe space for you to store it,” Montano said. “It is still a privilege to afford a nanny or somebody who can be with you for 14 days overseas. We’d love to see some of the work we’re doing with national governing bodies to support families during this time.”
Tuliamuk, who missed out on Paris 2024 due to injury, is also looking forward to LA 2028, hoping she will have the support she needs if she welcomes another child by then. “Having your baby there makes sure that nothing changes and that you can be the best version of you,” she said. “We’ve seen what mothers can do when they’re 100% supported. Let’s continue to do that.”
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