The Female Athlete’s Body: From Glory to Body Horror

In this article, I will try to trace the metamorphosis of the female athlete’s body, the stages of her development until her professional death, when her body is already considered unnecessary, and society is disgusted or indifferent to the resulting „other“ being, which until yesterday aroused admiration and „national pride“. Also of interest are the interventions to which the athlete is forced to resort in order to preserve her job, dignity and prestige. For the athlete, leaving the disciplinary machine of sport is equal to a huge professional loss and life’s misfortune. Therefore, female athletes are forced to cross many more physical boundaries, in terms of modeling and intervention over their bodies, in order to stay at the top. The description of these interventions and actions, taken out of the context of sport, for the average person is a plot for the so-called body horror. The aging athlete is yet another piece of evidence that we have of the serious gender inequalities and double standards still operating in our time.