Olympian Clara Hughes was used to pushing her body. But when menopause hit, her body pushed back

Olympian Clara Hughes was used to pushing her body in order to compete at the most elite levels of sport. But the onset of perimenopause, and later, menopause, she says, tested her in ways she could not fully comprehend.

“Menopause literally messed me up so bad and turned me so far upside down that I didn't know which way was up and which way was down,” Hughes told The Sunday Magazine’s Piya Chattopadhyay.

The 54-year-old cyclist and speed skater, who retired from sports in 2012, says she dealt with perimenopause — a phase that typically begins in your 40s — for years, experiencing hot flashes, night sweats and mood changes.

On top of that, a debilitating knee injury in 2021 left her unable to walk for months, making the once-top athlete feel like she was a “failure at everything in life.”

Hughes chronicles her “fraught relationship” with her body in her new memoir Learning to Breathe. In it, she says the issues with her self-image started as a teenager and endured throughout her sports career. It wasn’t until she entered menopause that she was finally able to begin building a healthy relationship with her body. It also encouraged her to contend with her emotions, leading her to experiment with psychedelics and other drugs, she says.

Hughes says her menopausal symptoms were treated like a mental health disorder. Instead of being offered treatment like hormonal replacement therapy, considered highly effective for menopausal symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, she says she was prescribed anti-depressants.

“I came to realize — what many women realize — is that the medical system under-funds, under-researches and underserves women, and particularly women moving into the season of menopause,” she said.

Few doctors