In Casually Mentioning Her Period, Olympic Medalist Breaks Taboos

Fu Yuanhui's on-air comment has gained international attention.

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Chinese swimmer Fu Yuanhui, 100m breast stroke bronze medalist, has won over Olympics audiences with her candor. She first made headlines for her endearing, exaggerated expressions and now has received international attention for talking about her period, an oft-hushed topic in sports and live television.

After placing fourth in the 4x100m relay (finishing in 3:55:18, just 0.17 seconds slower than Denmark), Yuanhui and her three teammates, Lu Ying, Shi Jinglin, and Zhu Menghui, did an interview with CCTV.


You could see she's doubled over in pain, clutching her stomach when the reporter asks, "Your stomach must hurt a lot right now?" Yuanhui replies, "It's because I just got my period yesterday, so I'm still a bit weak and really tired. But, this isn't an excuse for not swimming well."


The swimmer sparked a frenzy of reactions on Weibo, China's Twitter-like social media platform. Apparently, male critics were making claims that swimming in a pool while menstruating was unhygienic and unhealthy. Female commenters reacted more appropriately, "Don't talk to me about staining the pool red or taking medicine to stop one's period," one wrote, "Haven't you heard of something called a tampon?"

In China, open discussion about menstruation is still taboo. On top of that, few women use tampons because it is widely believed that using one takes a woman's virginity. Chen Yaya, a feminist activist and researcher at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences tells the New York Times, that "Fu Yuanhui's comments have raised awareness, because Chinese society still approaches menstruation indirectly, even considering it unlucky." She continued, "But there's no need for this at all. The period is simply an everyday phenomenon."

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