Five Canadian elite women weigh in on recent debate surrounding cross-country uniforms

Last month, a debate surrounding the cross-country uniforms worn by high school girls caught fire. When a Long Island mom started a petition to ban “bum hugger” uniform bottoms from her daughter’s school, many in the running community were outraged. The Long Island school gives its female students an option between the bottoms and a longer pair of shorts. This particular mother started her petition “Ban the Brief” as a response to seeing her daughter’s team mates wearing the uniform which she felt sexualized the young athletes. After the story circulated the running community both in Canada and internationally, we reached out to some of Canada’s most talented female runners to ask them what they thought of the whole debacle. They were pretty vocal in their responses. Their verdict? Five thumbs down for this petition.  

Rachel Hannah

“I don’t think that’s necessary at all. The racing uniform is for performance. Fitted bottoms are the most comfortable and highest performing. I feel the obsession about body image isn’t healthy and debates like these only draw unneeded attention to what’s otherwise just part of the sport’s culture. At the elite level, we wear fitted uniforms, so I don’t see why younger athletes need to wear different. The men’s split shorts can be revealing enough (as we have seen on social media) and there’s no debate there as it’s known that they’re better for performance. Racing briefs in women’s running is similar. The healthy discussions in women’s sport need to be about eating healthy and enough, staying positive and sticking with the sport for a lifetime, not about what we’re wearing.”

Krista DuChene

Nicole Sifuentes

“I’m not very familiar with this situation but here at the University of Michigan, the women choose which uniform bottoms they want to wear. In high school, my school provided a singlet and we chose the bottoms we wanted to wear for competition. As a professional athlete, Saucony provides us with three styles of bottoms for our uniform and each athlete can wear whichever she wants. Each girl on the team should compete in a uniform she’s comfortable with. I think having options is the simple and obvious solution.”

Andrea Seccafien

“I generally disagree with the petition. It’s clearly stated that the girls get a choice between bun huggers and shorts and I don’t see an issue with this. If they, or their parents, don’t want to wear briefs, then they don’t have to. But I believe that saying that these briefs – a piece of performance clothing – are underwear that “sexually exploits the female athletes” creates an issue. As an athlete in the sport, and as someone who has raced in briefs for years, that’s the last thing I would think if I saw a high school girl racing in briefs. By continuing to have conversations about what girls wear in sport, we’re sending a message that girls should be more concerned about what they’re wearing than their performance. We should be using sport to create a safe place for girls to be athletic, strong and have fun so that for one minute or one hour, they don’t have to think about their body in a negative way. Girls drop out of sport at a rate of six times more than boys and I can’t help but think these conversations about girls’ bodies, rather than their performance, is a contributing factor.”

Natasha Wodak