Aly Raisman Opens Up About Free-Bleeding
Olympic medalist Aly Raisman may be known for her flawless gymnastics, but her queen status doesn't make monthly periods any easier.
It's why Aly, 22, didn't hesitate to jump on board when Playtex Sport approached her to be the face of their newest tampon campaign - even though most women spend an enormous amount of energy, time, and money trying to hide their periods from the world. "There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, it’s a totally natural thing," says the gymnast, who wasn't always this open about her flow. She would hide tampons up her sleeve during bathroom breaks in high school - as one does - after she got her first period at age 14.
"It’s OK to feel uncomfortable, but you can’t let your period get in the way," says Aly, who's had compete in gymnastics tournaments while battling her sometimes debilitating periods, which she says sometimes makes it hard to get out of bed.
"When you’re really nervous, you have butterflies in your stomach, and you have your period - it’s just not a good combination," she says - and you don't have to be a gymnast to relate. Still, you've got to feel for Aly, who can't exactly hide rogue period leaks while competing in a leotard. "You just kind of have to just keep going ... You can’t tell the judges you want to compete tomorrow or wait a few days," she says.
Although Aly is happy to engage in period talk to destigmatize the topic, free-bleeding to create a viral moment - like the London marathoner who free-bled through her race, or the woman who leaked through her white leggings during a yoga flow she posted on Instagram - isn't on her agenda. "I give [those women] a lot of credit for being that comfortable," she says. "That’s a really amazing thing. I don’t know if I’d have the confidence to do that."
It's understandable. After all, Aly's periods can be a lot to handle without leaks: "Some months, I literally feel like I can’t get out of bed," she says.
While everyone is entitled to moodiness once a cycle, it hasn't amounted to any major blowouts among Aly's Final Five teammates. Besides, her friends' spirits rarely dip so low that they can't be fixed by a good group laugh. "When you’re able to kind of be in a bad mood in front of someone, it really shows your friendship," she says of her teammates, who've helped her shake off moodiness in the past. "The key to our success was having each other as a distraction, because it’s very stressful and it’s very scary with all the attention that’s on you."
Although Aly says she values the friendships she's formed with her teammates, Gabby Douglas recently said the Final Five is over - they're all scattered and not contracted to stay together. But Aly wasn't offended that Gabby all but denounced their bond. "I don’t think that she meant it like that," says the gymnast, who recently saw all of her teammates together except for Gabby, who she met up with the following day. "I think [Gabby] just means that we don’t get to see each other as much as we would like to."
Even so, this isn't the first time Gabby has been implicated for stoking drama among Team USA's most celebrated female gymnasts: Recently, Simone Biles retweeted Gabby and called her out for failing to reply to a group text, using the hashtag, #FinalFive. When asked about the incident, Aly stuck up for Gabby again: "There are times when you have a group text message, and there’s a billion things going on," she says of Gabby's ghosting. "Sometimes you have 20 text messages, and you’re just like, 'I just want to put my phone away, lay in bed.'"
Still, she's not blaming Simone for her sass. "I don’t really know [what happened] because it wasn’t me, but I’m sure [Simone's tweet] was lighthearted," Aly says. "Simone jokes around a lot."
It's no wonder Aly would love to see all of her teammates more often. "We’ve accomplished so much together that I think it’s hard to not stick together and to be friends," she says. "We’re all moving on in different chapters of our lives - which is great - but we all have to support each other."
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