Demi Vollering is one of the world’s best cyclists, but alongside her Grand Tour wins and Classics titles, she is also known as one of the most honest characters in the peloton, not least when it comes to talking about periods, nutrition and health among female athletes.
The FDJ United-Suez rider made headlines for her firm comments about rider weight after last year’s Tour de France Femmes, and has frequently spoken about her period and menstrual cycle on her own platforms and in interviews, talking about how it can affect her in races.
Other riders have done the same – Kim Le Court-Pienaar and Marlen Reusser, for example – but Vollering says that her status as one of the sport’s biggest stars has motivated her even more use her voice to talk about these issues.
“Try to eat good before the ride, during the ride and after the ride, just really focus on your recovery instead of trying to be as light as possible. That’s really a small piece that comes all the way in the end – first you need to make sure that you’re always energised for your training and that you can give 100 per cent in your training, because that’s where you get stronger.”
For Vollering, who has spoken openly about not targeting an extremely low bodyweight, missing periods is not as issue, but having a period also comes with its own physical and mental challenges. Many female riders choose to stop their period through hormonal contraceptive methods, but for Vollering, it’s about understanding her symptoms, rather than shutting them off.
“Just before my period comes I always feel a bit less motivated, a bit more insecure, my sleep is less good, my heart rate is a bit higher, my breathing is a bit more hard,” she explained. “It’s a lot of small symptoms, but as soon as you start to understand all these symptoms, you also know it’s natural and you try to accept it, because in the end I’m just happy and also proud that I’m a woman and we have these weird phases.”
As Cyclingnews explored in a recent feature, part of our women’s health series, tracking her menstrual cycle is also an important tool for Vollering.
“When you have your period, also keep tracking that and keep an eye on it, because if you have your period, it’s really easy to have this monitor of if you’re still good [healthy] or not, because if you’re not, your period won’t come or it’s late or it’s very little. So I think it’s a really easy measurement,” she said.
“I’m really aware of what’s happening and also my mood, how it changes for example, or if I’m more hungry, then I always try to remember and find links with my cycle. For me that was super helpful because I started to understand ‘ah, it’s normal that I’m hungry’ or normal that I have these cravings. Of course I shouldn’t go crazy on chocolate or something like that, but you try to eat a bit more fruit.”
Whilst Vollering seems to be in a good and healthy place when it comes to her weight, nutrition and menstrual cycle, she affirmed the need for athletes like her to be a good example for younger riders, and to keep the topic of women’s health in the spotlight.
“I think it’s very important that we keep pushing women’s sport because I think we are really on a good way up, but I think there’s still so much we can do to go further up. I think also for us female athletes it’s just very important to keep speaking up, tell the world about this topic as well, because I think we really have a big [platform]. If you don’t use that, then probably this topic goes a little bit more to the background again and we forget a little bit more about it,” she said.
“The most important for me is always that people can see us, they can follow us, they can watch us, because then we can inspire the next generation, and that’s most important, that we have the next generation of women athletes coming up.”
Read Cyclingnews’ women’s health series