Starving_for_the_Gold_(Summary)

1. (Summary) There’s a saying that men and women should be treated equally but when it came to Laura Robinson this wasn’t the case. Starving for gold is the story about an athlete, Laura Robinson and many other women athletes striving to be the best they can be at the sport. Although Robinson is now a retired athlete, as a women participating in sports she went through physical and sexual abuse. Women were pressured into looking their best rather than being their best. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, women with female coaches were passed on to male coaches. This was only the case if they had experience and true talent. This meant that only males can be good leaders and that women should look up to them. Using weight and body fat as a tool to manipulate athletes is a form of sexual abuse and the coaches were doing just that. In the story, one of the few athletes, who weighed 135 pounds and was 5-foot-5, was convinced by her coach that she needed to lose weight. This made her believe she was fat and it led to starvation. As one of top athletes, due to her starvation diet, her standings suffered greatly; as a result she retired from active competition. Another athlete was made to believe that standings in sports didn’t mean anything and that appearance was most important. The third athlete was convinced that maintaining low body fat composition was most important, more important than the sport itself. They would be treated to drugs such as anabolic steroids. This would change their physical appearance and could have them ill afterwards. According to Marion Lay, manager of the women’s program at Sports Canada, “coaches who manipulate through food and body image, are robbing women of their self esteem and self respect.” Women had to give up many things in order to enter the sports world. It was as if they were being treated like slaves rather than athletes. They were told to play the game the way the coaches themselves wanted them to play, and look the way they wanted them to look. Mr. Porter, Canada’s former director, claimed that he had been fired when he had suggested for black people and woman coaches to be allowed. Many would wonder why these women athletes aren’t doing anything about these situations but the women themselves are too intimidated to report complaints and also believe they would get ignored. Most athletes, nearly one third of them had an eating disorder due to so much pressure. Many eating disorders lead to anorexia. Anorexia is an eating disorder in which one cannot maintain a healthy body weight and has the fear of gaining weight. The coaches have given this fear to the athletes. Anorectic athletes will eventually break down and be unable to compete at a professional level. It has been said that fifteen percent of anorectics and bulimics will die over a course of 30 years and this was all due to male coaches manipulating the athletes. As a male coach or any coach, one would think the actual sport would have more meaning to them than the appearance of the athletes but seeing women suffer from disorders and be uncomfortable in the body there is much more exciting to them. 2. (People in the Reading) Laura Robinson was a former member of Canada’s national cycling and skiing team. The first few people mentioned in the essay were female members of Canada’s national sports teams and coaches. These were the women who were physically and sexually abused while they were still juniors. The names of the athletes in the essay were disguised to cover their true character/identity. Laura also mentions Mr. Porter who was fired for promoting black and women coaches. Another person that was mentioned in the essay was Marion Lay manager of the women’s program at sports Canada who spoke on behalf of the women abused. The author did speak of others and gave examples of many other coincidences that occurred between coaches and athletes but no names were given.