Jungle Gyms

Female Athletics & the Predators Inside

The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang last February were followed by a jarring juxtaposition of news stories. On one side, the media offered some laudatory stories of women who managed to combine motherhood with careers as high-level athletes. Kikkan Randall, for instance, who won a gold medal in cross-country skiing, is also the mother of a toddler. During the months of rigorous training and traveling leading up to the Olympics, she and her husband, with the help of the whole USA ski team, managed to find a way to keep their family together. (They did leave their son with grandparents during the Olympics, due to cost.) "In a sport like cross-country skiing, where it takes so long to get to the top, you...