TRIGGERnometry - Olympian Sharron Davies - The Fight for Women’s Sport

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

Sharron Davies MBE is a former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in three Olympic Games. In 1980 she famously lost out on a gold medal, placing second to a doped East German competitor. She has recently released a book, ‘Unfair Play: The Battle For Women's Sport’, partly as a response to the impact of trans identifying males competing in women’s sports. Available here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1800752806/ SPONSORED BY GiveSendGo - Go to https://www.GiveSendGo.com/ to check out a better alternative to crowdfunding. Support the people who support freedom! SPONSORED BY: Babbel. Go to https://babbel.com/play/ and use promo code TRIGGER to get an extra 6 months free! Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Intro  01:10 Sponsor Message: GiveSendGo 02:58 Sharron Davies’ Background 06:18 The East German Doping Scandal 10:27 Men in Women's Sports Today 12:13 Lia Thomas 12:54 When Sharron Realised There Was a Problem 13:53 The IOC’s Explanation  14:27 Where did This Come From & Who Allowed This to Happen? 17:29 How Biology Matters in Sport 20:51 Sponsor Message: Babbel  22:57 Why Aren't More Female Athletes Speaking Out? 23:50 What Has Sharron Lost Over This Issue? 25:42 Why Do Women That Speak Out Get Treated Worse Than Men? 30:24 The Importance of Fair Play in Sport 32:44 What is The Trans Activist Argument? 34:35 Is Progress Being Made on The Trans Issue in Sport? 37:02 The Risk of Serious Injury to Women 39:44 Is This Battle Going To Be Long Term? 42:29 The Mindset of an Elite Athlete 44:24 The Mentality Difference Between Individual & Team Sports 46:07 Do You Change as a Person When You Compete? 47:59 How To Lose Well 49:05 What It’s Like to Represent Your Country 50:26 What’s the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What we find is that women remove themselves. If you have a parent that turns up with their daughter to play a rugby game and they recognise that there's a male on the opposite team, the parent will remove their child. Understandably. Yeah, exactly. As a safety, I'm a sensible dad. I do not want my daughter having a neck broken.

I'm taking her off the field. And one of the things I find the most heartbreaking is that we've had a massive increase in primary schools, now just having sports days, which are mixed sex. And I've lost cap. The number of parents have contacted me with their, you know, 11-year-old. old daughter who's come back from Sports Day and said not a single little girl want to race today. Do you sometimes pinch yourself? Yeah, all the time.

Every day I wake up and go, how are we here? How has this happened? If we turn around and say that we have to pretend somebody as a woman, then what's next? Are people going to say that they're 10 years older or 10 years younger? There's got to be reality and truth. I worry terribly about free press and free speech and, you know, if we're, we're We lose free speech. We lose democracy. Hello, and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constance and Kisson.

And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our brilliant guest today is a former professional swimmer who won a silver medal competing for this country, Great Britain. Sharon Davis, welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. Oh, it's so good to have you on. I've been meaning to have you on the show for a while. You've been saying your opinion about interesting things. So we wanted to talk to you about that. Before we do, though, who are you? How are you where you are? What has been the journey through life that brings you

to be here talking to us? Gosh, it's a long journey. So I did my first Olympic Games when I was 13, which was, yeah, nearly 50 odd years ago now. And my whole career really, I suppose, has been swimming in Olympic Games. And every four years, I get to do another one. So I've done 13, well, 13 will be Paris. So, you know, sort of four-year increments. Obviously, won my silver medal in Moscow that you mentioned, but obviously Commonwealth medals, European medals, world medals, all the different medals on the way. But much of my youth being in a swimming pool, smelling of chlorine, very, very clean child.

And then I went to university in America after I won my silver, because there was nothing really in this country. There's no lottery funding in those days. So it was either the Dole or the universities in America. But to maintain my scholarship, I needed to swim, and I just needed a break. You know, I needed six months off from doing six hours a day of training and to be an 18-year-old for a little while.

And that wasn't really allowed. and I did a TV program called Give Us a Clue, which you won't remember because you're well too young, but it was just a quiz show, got paid 40 quid and got branded a professional and wasn't allowed to compete anymore. So I spent eight years away kind of working in television and doing all sorts of different things. And then I was at the Olympic Games in Seoul with Mary Peters, sharing a flap. And Mary said, don't spend the rest of your life saying, what if. So at this stage, I was like 28, 29. And I thought, well, if I don't do it now, I'll never be able to do it.

So I got back in the water and made another Olympics and one of a few more comrades. medals and then met Derek Redmond at the Olympic Games in 92 when he pulled his hamstring. Oh, that story. Oh, that video has done trillions of views and I cannot watch it without crying. I know. And it's very authentic. That's the thing. You know, it really is. How has Dad ever got out of the crowd? I will never know. Because, I mean, security, as you'd imagine, at Olympics, it's quite intense. And we just ended up sitting on a beach that night and he was saying, I was running so well. And then I pulled my hamstring and I was going, I was swimming so well. And then I did my best swims at training camp.

And then we got together after that. And we have two kids. We're not together now, but we're still good friends. And then I've got a little one as well who's 16. So that's kind of my sporting career. The rest of it is kind of working in television, working for the BBC pool side. I get to take a microphone in front of all the swimmers,

which is just the best job in the world. Yeah, and just recently written my book on Fair Play about the challenges to women's sport, which has always been there. Because obviously I was competing during the East German era. So I won an awful lot of silver and bronze medals behind East Germans. And that was allowed to go on for 20 years. Tell people more about that because a younger audience may not be familiar.

Francis and I joke about it because I'm from Russia and this sort of Russian Eastern German cheating and all of that is kind of in our DNA. But tell us more because people may not be familiar with this. What were the challenges to competition for women like you and others in the past? Yeah. So during the 70s and the 80s, the old East Germany, Basically, we're putting an awful lot of nasty, sterilised testosterone into their young girls as a programme really to win in sport.

They totally dominated in the women's events, obviously, because what they could do was they could create a sort of a male puberty by giving these young girls these terrible drugs from about 11. And with massive side effects, many of them have been really poorly, some have even died. This was allowed to go on for a very long time. The girl that beat me was from East Germany. I've met her since, and she's got liver problems and kidney problems.

problems and fertility problems and all sorts of things. They had big court cases when the war came down in 89. We were all very aware of it at the time. You knew it was happening? Oh, yes. I mean, because they would turn up, you know, at a major competition. We'd never seen them before. They would look and sound like men.

They had deep voices and, you know, shadows on their chins, bless them, and bad skin, and a male physique. And they swam like males. You know, they would do male equivalent times. And they'd disappear again. and we'd see another one at the next major competition. You know, and they would have hardly any success in the men's races and this massive success in the women's races.

So at European level, they won 92% of the women's medals throughout that whole period of time and practically none in the men's. And the ILC went, well, they're not doing anything. And it was really, really frustrating. I mean, really frustrating. And I suppose that's why I speak out now. It's the biggest reason I speak out now because I had friends that came forth behind three East Germans

and their whole lives would have been different if they've been Olympic champions. And you use that term really frustrating, but it's more than that, isn't it? Sharon, surely. You know, you've dedicated your life to this, your childhood, you every day, eight hours a day, and all of a sudden,

somebody cheats. It's more than frustrating, isn't it? It's the injustice of it, I suppose. It was the injustice of it for all of us, because even at the time, we knew that they weren't doing it kind of... I'm reluctant to say, not knowing, because I think they must have known something was going on. Their bodies were changing, their voices were changing.

You know, they're going to ask questions. They're not stupid. However, there was very little they could do about it. So they weren't in a position where they could control it. Because what we showed, I did a documentary a few years ago, and we went to the Stasi files, and we could see that they were making about a 9% improvement. So you could take a very average swimmer, a female swimmer.

If you make 9% improvement, you make them world record holders. So they had this total, you know, they had an infinite number of young girls they could just move into the system, filled them in front of these terrible drugs, and have them as world champions. So they didn't need to look after their best swimmers because they had a train of just young girls, that they were removing from their families and putting them into training programs. So it was horrendous what was done. And, you know, there was always two victims.

There was evictions that were cheated, like myself and my friends. And there were these young girls that were incredibly badly let down, you know, by the IOC. And why didn't the IOC get involved in? Why did they not? Because if it was as clear as day, and it really does sound like it, why did they not do something? And they've still done nothing now. So we've had all the evidence. We've got all the paperwork. We had Germans, they had court cases where I think 25 million euros were given out in compensation. We've had, you know, admissions of guilt. I've got admissions of guilt from the young woman that beat me on tape. The IOC will still do nothing. And you just kind of, you just, I find it beggars belief when they're supposed to be promoting fair sports. you know. Sharon, talk to us about your friends, and obviously you don't have to go into, you know, personal details if you don't want to.

But I think one of the things that often gets missed in this whole conversation is what sort of impact in a competitive environment where it's not a percentage thing. It's not like, well, you know, this person got promoted unfairly and they get 3% more money and you don't. It's like you either won or you didn't. And the gap between those two is, as you say, life-changing. Yeah, it's absolutely the commercial gap between being an. Olympic champion and being fourth and no one ever remembering who you were is huge.

You know, it's absolutely huge. It's totally life-changing. And so it's that ability to have that opportunity, which I was not prepared to let happen all over again. The same end result in the fact that male puberty is enabling someone to have an advantage. You know, one was artificial with the East German system. One is a natural process now. And I just thought, I can't let this happen again.

I can't sit by and watch a whole other generation of young girls. out. And it's worse really, because in lots of ways with the transgender argument is you've got all of the pathways, you've got all of the master's events, you've got it across every sport, across every country. Whereas in my day, it was just an elite level and it was just predominantly in, say, swimming, rowing and track and field. You know, it wasn't going to affect the British national championships or the American, European, you know, college trials or any of those things, whereas now it's affecting all young women across the whole world. They're not getting their opportunities to their success. And it might be an Olympic medal, which is huge, or it might just be the fact that you

make it to the national, the NC2As, and you get to put this on your, you know, on your CV for the rest of your life, which opens a door for you when you're going for a job application. They're losing those opportunities. And that's not fair. And of course, in America, just to flesh that point out a little bit, because of the way the whole sporting and college system are linked, you could, you could get to college that you might not be able to afford and get a really good education based on your athletic performance. And yet here you are competing with people who are male-bodied, to put it very diplomatically. The truth is that they are male-bodied.

And that will never change. Their biological sex will always be male. No matter how much testosterone they reduce, no matter how much plastic surgery they might choose to have. And again, that doesn't happen in sport. They don't have plastic surgery. They don't have genitals removed. And in a lot of cases, they try to reduce testosterone for incredibly short periods of time. like Leo Thomas, you know, with the NC2As,

Leah was asked to reduce her testosterone levels to 10 animals of testosterone per litre. Well, that's 10 times what I have. And that was only for one year. I mean, so the difference is just ridiculous. That person goes from being 460th in America, not in the world. In the world, they would be not in the top 2,000.

In America, 200 to being number one and beating three American silver medalists in the space of a year. So, I mean, a very mediocre male athlete it becomes a very elite female athlete. And all those elite female athletes that have spent 10 years of their life making huge sacrifices are just expected to step aside.

And Sharon, when was the first moment you thought we've got a problem here? It's been in the background for a while. Up until 2015, the IOC allowed males to identify females if they had got a certificate and had had genital surgery. In 2015, it changed.

And it's got progressively work. I mean, to the point now where the IOC don't even suggest that anyone reduces testosterone, they just say you're not supposed to suggest that anyone that's biologically male has an advantage. Well, that is the most ludicrous thing to say because we have men and women's races. So if there's no advantage, why are we having men and women's races? Why don't we just have 100 metres on the track? You know, we know why, because we have two sexes. And so therefore to offer opportunity across society, we have all these different types of categories.

And that's not just male, female, that's age. categories, that's para classifications, that's weight categories in boxing. It's all sorts of different categories to offer fair opportunity across society. And in 2015, did the IOC actually give an explanation? Because we all know the IOCs, how can I put it, a little bit murky, let's say, because we don't want to be sued by them. They're a little bit murky with their practices. Allegedly. Allegedly.

Yeah, we go down that room. No, not really. I mean, I think their problem is they're just worried about being sued. they're more interested in the politics and the funding. I mean, I don't understand how an organisation's sole job is to offer, you know, fair sport just decided that women's sport didn't deserve to be fair anymore. Do you sometimes pinch yourself? Yeah, all the time.

Every day I wake up and go, how are we here? How has this happened? Why has this happened? Who's allowed this to happen? Right. It just does not make. And how is everybody so scared when, not a single piece of science backs up the inclusion of anyone that's gone through male

puberty into women's sport as being fair. We've got 18 studies in the world. The last came out of Brazil in September of last year, one of the biggest. And that showed even after 14 years of reducing testosterone, we still had no parody between people that were male or female. There were still hardly any loss of advantage. So, you know, there's not a single piece of study that supports that inclusion. And yet here we are. It's funny you say that because we just had the comedian Evan's on the show, who in his latest show, he talked about having problems with his testosterone levels, and he had to get testosterone replacement. And when he was at his bottom, he qualified to compete in women's competitions. And it just goes, this doesn't make any sense. It makes no sense.

And it's also like boiling an egg. So once someone whose male's gone through puberty, you can't unboil that egg. So reducing testosterone doesn't make any. difference. It might mean you don't get any bigger or any faster, but then it's all relative to how much training you do anyway. So if you, or how much injury you've got, all sorts of different variables, you know, that are involved in someone's physical

performance and whether they're, you know, a scale of one to ten. And yeah, just suppressing testosterone in no shape or form, you know, makes it fair competition. So you said, where did this come from, how did this come about,

who let it happen? Do you have any thoughts on that? I have a lot of thoughts. I mean, I try to concentrate on sport because it's what I know. I know 50 years of being involved in elite sport. I know inside out, back to front. I've spoken to a lot of scientists,

a lot of extremely well-known, very successful scientists and people that know what they're talking about. It's important to know the background of all of that. I try very hard to just stick to this area because it's, you know what it's like. It's a minefield out there, okay? And I want people to listen

respectfully to what I'm saying and that's the reason I did the book because I wanted to put all of the evidence, all of the gotchas, all of the science into one place that people that want to try and fight this and fight for their daughters and their sisters and for their friends to have fair sport where they could have it a bit like an encyclopedia

and they could go to and they could get all of that information. And also wanted to show the correlation between the East Germany era and what happened and why that happened because of artificial testosterone and to show the similarities of what will happen again if we turn around and allow on a fair sport. And I was in the lucky position, I suppose, where I could afford to take a bit of a hit. And I have seriously taken a hit.

But I felt that it was really worth it. You know, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't. Sharon, and you've mentioned about the science. And we've touched on it a little bit. So let's do a deep dive into it. What is the difference between someone like a Leah Thomas and someone like a Riley Gaines? Yeah, good, good knowledge. I like it.

So Riley and Leah tied for fifth place. And that's where Riley's got all this bravery from because she was asked to literally not accept her trophy and was told that the trophy could go to Leah and Riley would have to wait for hers. And I think she, and I'm so proud of her for doing that because it's really hard as a competing athlete to come at the beginning of your career

when you can be blacklisted so bad to go forward in your career. I mean, the university was horrendous. It blackmailed all its athletes. who were being asked to change next to a six-foot-four biologically male with full male genitalia and were told that they would be sent to a psychiatrist if they complained. That's what the University of Pennsylvania said. Wow. Yeah.

That's the stuff that used to do in the Soviet Union. It's like if you don't agree with us, you go to the psych hospital. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. It's insane. It's seriously insane. It's so depressing that that was what came out of America.

It really is. And so Riley's been very brave to come forward and to speak. The difference at Olympic level in sport is between about 10 and 30%. So something like middle distance running is 10%. Weightlifting is up there at 30%. So the more explosive an event is, the more the difference between male and female biology. Something like high jump, long jump, quite explosive, about 20, 22%. A male of equal weight will hit 160% harder than female.

and that's onto a female bone structure which is less dense. Women have a bigger cue angle because of the size of our hips. That means that we end up with six times more knee injuries and things like football because we obviously have this angle. But it means that a male will have more ability to put power through their legs on things like sprinting, on striding, on a bike in particular. It's a big advantage. So these are all things that reducing testosterone makes no difference to whatsoever.

So it's massive. You know, when you think that the 9% that these German women, women meant that they were unbelievably dominant to the point of 92% of all the European medals. And 10% is the lowest that we've got, you know, presently between male and female performance. Yeah, I mean, it's catastrophic. It means at half a length of the pool. And Olympic medals are won by hundreds of a second. So, and also as well, there's a lung capacity issue as well.

Yeah, lung capacity, hemoglobin levels, hands, feet, you know, Lear Thomas, 6'4, huge great hands, huge great feet, those are your paddles. So, you know, all of those things, yes, there is the odd, very tall female, but it's, you know, six foot four in swimming for a man is fairly average. that's not average for a women. The women is about six foot. We're a tall breed. I mean, each sport, let's be honest, you've only got to look at the Olympic Games.

You don't get six foot four-foot-four gymnasts. You don't get, you know, four-foot-six basketball players or volleyball players. So to be the best in the world, your physiology has pretty much got to be right to do that sport. So, yes, swimmers are fairly tall, but we're not that tall. You know, women are on the whole about five. I'm 5-10, 5-11, 6 foot.

Most sprinter, female sprinters will be around that. Distance swimmers can be a little bit shorter. but the guys who are often 6-4, 6-5-66. And why is it that female athletes, I mean, there are some, Riley Gaines is a great example of this, haven't stood up and gone, to be brutally honest, this is taking the piss.

Unfortunately, not them are made to sign contracts. So they have contracts with their governing bodies, which are their associations, and that doesn't enable them to say anything that the association thinks would be derogical. or would cause problems for them. We also have contracts with their sponsors. So again, that would stipulate the same sort of things.

It's made very plain to them that it's not recommended that they speak out. And so that's why it's really important that we have these anonymous polls. But it took seven years for any governing body to ask a female athlete how they felt about enabling males to be in their races. And you alluded to some of the things you've lost. for speaking about this issue. Can you talk a little bit about that? Because I think it ties into why you're in a much more comfortable position. You can't have your potential dream of an Olympic medal taken away.

You've been there, you've done it, etc. But for these young women, there's that punishment. So what's happened with you, first of all? Just a lot of work. Trans activists can be very vicious. They will literally find out where you're working, who you're working with, and just attack and attack and attack and ring and ring. and phone and send letters and just do everything in their power

to make it very difficult for companies to work with you because companies at the end they just don't want the agro in most cases. You know, so if it's going to be between me or three other famous British female athletes, they'll pick somebody else because they just don't want the agro. And then I had charities that they did exactly the same to charities that I worked with for 30 years. Yeah, they just made my life hell.

I mean, the worst one is when they attack my family, you know, because at the end of the day, I suppose that's my biggest soft spot, my kids. I love them to pieces and I would, you know, die for them like all of us would. But most of the time it's, it's vile misogyny. And I, my mum sadly died about four years ago and she left me the money which has kept me going. And I look up, I think to my, my mum, my mum was looking down on me now. She would be very proud of me. I mean, I remember having a conversation with my mum when she bought her first house of my dad. And she wasn't allowed to be on the mortgage.

because only my dad could be on the mortgage. So my, you know, my mum's generation and my grandmother's generation were the ones that fought for us to have the equality that we have today. And I just think at the moment we're going backwards with regards to women's rights. And the misogyny that seems to be around

in the world at the moment is just extraordinary and every day it gets worse. Well, and that's the thing because I think, you know, there are elements that sometimes people throw that word around where it doesn't really apply. We sometimes exaggerate. but on this issue, I have to observe that women who speak up seem to get way, way, way worse

treatment than men do. Like, I know lots of men who've made the points that you've made as stridently. You are very diplomatic, actually, about it, more stridently, and they don't have half the nonsense that you get. Why do you think that is? Because I think it's mainly males that do the attacking. It's mainly males that sit at home on their, you know, on their social media or are ringing companies up. It's, it's, this misogyny. It is, there is no other word.

And I'm like you. I hate using words, you know, like racist and misogynist or bully unless it really applies. Because I think all we ever do otherwise is dumb down these words. But at the moment, these words are just used to beat everybody over the head to silence everybody constantly. You know, and it's, we're just living in such strange times. And I worry terribly about free. press and free speech. If we lose free speech, we lose democracy.

Because democracy is based on free speech. It's that ability to be able to tell, to speak out, to have a platform. And the people to say that's rubbish. But we need to be able to say it in the first place. And let's delve into this. You say violent misogy. And I think it's really important that people actually understand what you mean by that. Because there'll probably be people at home going, oh, it's being over-sensitive,

blah, blah, blah. So what would we mean by this? Well, sport is particularly run by men as well. So in a lot of cases, particularly misogynistic sports like cycling and cricket, they're two of the worst sports that I've literally just turned around and cricket in this country's self-ID. So all you have to do as a male to play on the women's cricket team

is go, I'm a woman. That's it. I mean, that's how crazy it is as far as the ECB is concerned. That's how little regard they have for their women cricketers. I mean, women cricketers have never even played a test at Lords in this country. So, and then cycling again, a very misogynistic sport. It wasn't, you know, cycling wasn't even in the Olympics for women until the 1980s. So the book, you know, and then some of the things I found the book quite extraordinary

because I'm doing so much research and had to be so carefully reft, obviously, and very legally read and so on and so forth. But, you know, in the 1980s, when I was competing, there wasn't a single female sitting on the IOC committees. You know, so, and again, even today, the females that we have sitting on the IOC committees are from the Middle East. It won't even in most cases doing women's sport, because they're not allowed. out to. I mean, you know, it's just crazy. So unfortunately, that's the problem. A lot of sports

are run by men who don't have the same value of women's sports as women do. If this was a problem which was affecting male sport, men's sport, it would be sorted out. If you remember the situation we have with the costumes a few years ago, you know, they brought these suits out and they were making a vast difference. And Michael Phelps, when I'm not racing anymore unless you get rid of these suits, it was sorted out within a few months. And again, with the shoes, when they brought out the carbon shoes, you know, again, it was sorted out very quickly. when Oster Pistoria said, I want to race with the guys with my blades,

they went, no, because they might have got beaten. So, you know, it gets sorted. The moment it affects men's sport. But with women's sport, we'll just let it go because it keeps all this political people happy and it keeps all the PC brigade happy. And so they've literally kicked women's sport

to the side and not giving it the same respect that they give men's sport. And at the moment, you know, the thing that I always say is that presently, we are literally saying to our female athletes, you are not worthy of fair, sport. And do you think it's misogyny, but also do you think partly it's money in that they make a lot more from male sports? Male athletes tend to be on the whole bigger stars. They generate more

advertising income, et cetera, et cetera. So when Michael Phelps goes, I ain't doing it. I mean, not in swimming, they see, not in swimming, because yeah, Michael Phelps is a big star, but then so is Katie Ladecki now. So, you know, in swimming, we have a sport where men and women race together. We trained together and we have the same Olympic games and we're on the same program. And the television cameras are watching the women's race and then they're watching the men's race. Exactly the same as they do with track and field. So yes, you have the big stars. But things like football, rugby, cricket, yeah, very male dominated, big airtime, big money,

massive money in football. I mean, outrageous money in football. About 11,000 men earn a living from professional sport in England, Great Britain at the moment, 1,000 women. So we already have a much smaller piece of the cake. You know, our cake is tiny in comparison with two. what men get. And now we're being told we can't even have that. Well, right. I mean, the piece of the cake thing is, you know,

it's irrelevant to what you're talking about, which is fair play, right? I mean, I was never a professional athlete, obviously, so I'm telling you things you already know. But it's like the whole point of sport is that it's about fair play and you see who's best on the merit. That's the whole point. That's why people love it. That's why people watch it. That's why people part it. There's a purity. There's a purity. to it. That's the beauty of sport, isn't it? Fair. That's the whole point. I mean, to be honest, really, fair should be across life, shouldn't it? You know, sport often is just an analogy for life, you know, and I, you know, when I was working, and I still do work, and work has definitely

got a bit better over the last year. But I used to do a lot of motivational and corporate work, talking about how sport and business were very similar. You know, it's about the hard work. It's about the preparation. It's about your team support, the people behind you, looking after your team, you know, and setting targets and focus and all these things that apply to life in general. And resilience. You know, our kids are not very resilient. And so sport is really important, not only for health and fitness and fighting obesity, but also for resilience, for mental health. And it's a real trick that's being missed at the moment with regards to, you know, trying to help our youth who have these increasing mental health issues constantly. Resilience is,

is probably what I got at a sport racing, those East Germans for all those years. And here I am now, you know, being resilient. Yeah, absolutely. And it teaches kids a very important. two very important lessons. One is to win with dignity. Yes. Which, you know, and to lose with grace. And to lose with grace, absolutely. And to accept loss. And you see a lot of people who are my age or even older and you'd see them lose, even win. And you go, there's not a lot of dignity here. Yeah. I mean, I think what sport teaches you as well is it teaches you that you actually learn from your failures. You know, you mustn't be afraid of failing because failing teaches us a lesson. So then we go home, okay, why did I feel? How do I, how do I, how do I

make it better? What preparation, what hard work do I need to do to get better? And I think, again, we kid love a lot of our kids and the fact they're never allowed to fail. We're frightened if they fail. But actually, we're not doing them any favours by not allowing them to fail. You know, there's a lovely Chinese proverb that says fall over nine times, get up, you know, get up 10. And that's, yeah, that's really important, that ability to get back up and go again. And what is the IOC's explanation for why they're allowing this? What is, they don't, there isn't one. Not really.

What is the, you know, the trans activists? What's their argument? What is, what do they say? Their argument is if a trans woman says they're a woman, they're a woman. And so therefore they should be able to compete in the woman's competition. And now I answer, well, let's rename the category, let's go, natal female and open. And so my answer to the whole problem is go, we'll have a female protected classification, which is biological female, and we have an open and inclusive category for everybody.

However you would like to identify. And I'm not transphobic. I have friends that have, you know, two transgender daughters. And I'm a great believer that people should be able to express themselves however they want to, with safety and dignity, 100%. However, there has to be fairness for everybody across society. And you can't just trump it all by just going, well, because I say I'm this, I am this. And what worries me is, where does this stop?

If we turn around and say that we have to pretend somebody is a woman, and my definition of women was adult human female, then what's next? Are people going to say that they're 10 years older or 10 years younger or different, you know, there's got to be reality and truth. But so the thing we need to do is to respect people that are transgender women

and transgender men. You know, that's where we need to do. In sport, it's quite fascinating because if we have a transgender man, so a biological female that wants to compete, i.e. the NC2A's, which is the college championships in America, same thing that Leo Thomas competed in,

that transgender man still opted to race with the women, which, providing they're not on testosterone, nobody has a problem with. So if women can say, you identify however you like and providing and not taking illegal drugs, come race with us, and we will respect you, why can't that happen in men's races? Just the same. Well, this is the point I've made. I have a friend who's a former semi-professional boxer female,

and we were talking about this, and I was sort of saying, like, we have a word for injecting substances into your body that enhances your performance. There's a word for that. And whatever motivation you have for doing it is irrelevant because it enhances your performance. Right. It seems like a pretty basic concept that people would understand.

Do you feel that there is progress being made on this issue? We have seen some changes around the edges, certain competitions, certain athletes. Yeah, definitely. It's taken quite a while, you know, and a lot of pushing, a lot of pushing back by a lot of very brave people. So world aquatics were the first of the Olympic sports, really, the big Olympic sports, which I was very proud of. Actually, world rugby were the first to say we're going to protect the female athletes because safety was an option. So we're talking to go back to that boxing thing, you know, hitting 160% harder. Imagine running at each other on a rugby pitch, you know, the damage to people's necks, the spinal cords and things like that.

I mean, seriously, in contact sports, it was a massive accident waiting to happen. And there are still lots of contact sports that are not protecting their female athletes. football being won. Men kicks 50% harder. So, you know, there are going to be life-changing injuries if something's not done. So, and then track and field, Sarah Berle this year protected track and field as well. British triathlon have been very, very strong. British volleyball have been very strong. We're hoping, well, cycling will be the next to do it, but they have got, at the moment, 50, 50, just in North America alone, trans-identifying males in women's sport that are winning prizes all over the place. British cycling have ever ever, no, said we're going to protect the female category.

But things like Park Run, Park Run are allowing people to identify however they want. And course records, women's course records are falling every single weekend across the UK. So why wouldn't Park Run just introduce extra boxes for people to tick? I don't get it. You know, it's an easy thing to do. People go online to log in and, you know, to join up. And I want more people doing that. I think it's a fabulous event.

But why should women be losing their record? to people that are male. Why can't we just have a box that says transgender woman and transgender men and you have a transgender woman's record and a transgender men's record and a woman's record and a man's record and an under 10's record and a master's record or whatever?

But they're not doing that. They're just allowing people to self-ID and of course, again it's women that will lose out constantly. Do you think, and this is not a particularly nice question, but do you think it might need something drastic like a woman gets seriously injured and then we have lawsuits involved for the actual real change to be made and people go enough?

And that's what I'm trying to avoid, to be honest with you. That's what speaking, I've been trying to. I've been trying to stop there having to be a Leah Thomas in every sport before every sport does the obvious. Males are stronger and faster and more explosive than females. Not because we're better because we're different. You know, we're built to do different things. I'm built as a species with a large gamite to carry a child and to feed a child.

That's why I'm made for. Okay, you have small gamites, your job is different. And so it's not because we're better or worse. You know, it's so insulting when trans activists say women should just train harder. Ha! Because, I mean, I was training six hours a day for 10 years of my life. I broke my arms, broke both bones in both arms, my dad's wrapped them in plastic bags, and I trained with two broken arms.

The following year, I tore the ligaments in my knee, my dad tied my legs together for three months, and I trained with my arms only. You know, I could not have done more than I did. It was impossible. And most of the time I was training with the guys. And I was breeding quite a few of the guys. But I didn't beat the elite guys, you know. I was miles away.

I was 11% away from the elite guys. No matter how hard I trained. And when you see these people transition, for instance, like Alia Thomas, do you think, I mean, it's very difficult to see because there's a certain cynicism that creeps in. Are you cynical? Would you just try and remove yourself from that line of thinking and just stick to the facts? I try really hard to stick to the facts. You know, what I might tell you in private might be very different from what I tell you on film.

But I try very, very hard to be very logical, very fact-based, very honest, just very straightforward with it all, really. You know, very scientific, because I think that's the only way that we can win, ultimately. I don't want there to be a Ler Thomas and Ebustra, and I don't want a woman to lose her life. will be, you know, in a wheelchair to prove that a male is stronger, should never be in a contact sport. I mean, boxing is an interesting one because boxing,

boxing have said we will not, the male boxes said, we will not fight a female. So if somebody wants to be a transgender man and wants to go in a fight with the men, the men said, we will not do it because we will kill somebody. Yeah. So they've created extra leagues. Yeah.

So they recognize that there was, you know, potential for that, that manslaughter charged to come into it eventually. Sharon, do you think this is a blip? Do you think it's just fairly stagnant institutions that just didn't see it coming, it blindsided them, it came out of left field, and now one of them is going to catch up and then another one,

and quite quickly this moment will be over? Or do you think this is going to be a battle that you're going to have to keep fighting for some time? I'd like to think if the three big Olympic sports, you know, protect their female classifications, then all of the other sports will find it a little bit easier to follow. But there are a lot of very misogynistic sports at the moment that are run by what I would call the old school,

which are dragging their feet. And in North America, it's particularly difficult. I mean, we've even got Biden at the moment talking about, you know, removing the protection of Title IX. Now, Title IX came in in 1972 to protect female sport and to give females the same opportunities to get to, university scholarships, you know, and all those sort of things, to have basketball teams and women's football teams and all the rest of it. And they had a massive, it had a 300% improvement

rate, literally within the space of a couple of years, in female participation in sport. So if we remove that and allow people to self-identifying to women, it's going to go backwards. And what we find is that women remove themselves. So if you have, I don't know, let's just be hypothetical, if you have a parent that turns up with their daughter to play a rugby game, and they recognise that there's a male on the opposite team, the parent will remove their child. Understandably. Yeah, exactly.

I'm a sensible dad. I do not want my daughter having a neck broken. I'm taking her off the field. And so we end up self-excluding. So less and less women are taking part in things and doing things. They're self-excluding because it's unfair. And one of the things I find the most heartbreaking is that we've had a massive increase in primary schools, now just having sports days, which are mixed sex.

and I've lost cap, the number of parents have contacted me with their 11-year-old daughter who's come back from Sports Day and said not a single little girl won a race today because all the races were mixed. And what message are we giving little girls? A, they're not entitled to fairness and B, they can't win.

I mean, it's just crazy. And also, there's no point in even trying. Well, exactly, that's the point. So they give up. So they don't even bother to try. You know, the messages are outrageous and how hard is it to have two races? But they're petrified of being accused by, you know, somebody of not being PC

and so they're just taking the lazy option. And I don't understand why these teachers, these sports clubs, these NGBs are not supporting their female athletes. Well, you make the point beautifully. I think I really look forward. I haven't had a chance to read the book, but I'm going to. I really look forward to them. Tell everybody what it's cool.

It's called unfair play. It's about the battle for women's sport throughout history, obviously covering the East Germany era, a lot of horrendous truths, which really opened my eyes, and obviously where we are right now with the battle with the transgender inclusion. Perfect. But I don't want to wrap up yet because I think what you were talking about with resilience is actually something really, really important. We're working on a couple of projects around showcasing that. But you're a professional athlete. You talk about, I mean, wrapping broken arms and plastic bags, you know, knee injuries, just stitch, you know,

that sounds crazy to a normal person, I have to tell you. I think it's not normal. Yeah. Talk to us about mindset. Talk to us about that. Like, how do you have that level of determination that you're willing to endure that sort of thing in order to get to where you want to get to?

I think it's the same as looking at an entrepreneur, you know, that maybe it's lost their million, made their million, lost it again and gone again. And, you know, it's that utter determination to want to be the best you can be and the sacrifices that are evolved to do that. The support structure, you need that. My dad was my coach. You know, my parents gave up all their summer holidays, all their spare cash.

I used to be able to do my sport. Didn't get to travel around the world watching me because they couldn't afford it. It came from a very normal background. Dad was in the Navy, got invalided out because he lost the sight in his eye. And my dad spoke out. And because my dad spoke out about the East Germans, he was never picked as an international coach. even though he had the only female individual medalist

from the whole of the 1980 Olympics, which was me. Wow. And he wasn't picked because he spoke out. So even though we think that we understand, you know, the East German thing and we go, of course they were cheating, why wasn't more done? We knew at the time. And exactly the same happened to him as kind of happened to me.

And is there a difference in mentality between the individual, individualist sports, like swimming and people who play a team sport? Or is it kind of the same? I think it's slightly different because my son plays rugby I've got a 16 year at Both Academy

and my eldest played rugby at Millfield and my daughter did track and field so they've all done sport that's within the jeans Yeah Milfield's a very good sports school for people who Yeah very good sports school

We used to play against them And get slaughtered every time Yeah he was on a little bit of a scholarship But it was still a very expensive school Yeah I mean I think the mentality of a team sport is that there's 15 of you in rugby

or 11 or whatever. And so, you know, you're part of a, like a cog in a machine. And all of it's got to work together. And everyone's got their job. Whereas in an individual sport, it's just you. And I must admit, I always felt that I was an individual. I didn't like being in a team. I didn't like feeling like I had to rely on somebody else being on their A game.

It was down to me. And if I wasn't on my A game, it's my fault. So, yeah, I think there is a, you know, a certain mentality to people that want to do it individually versus people that want to do it in the team. But there's still huge sacrifices and hard work involved. the physical, you know, the fact that you weren't happy to beat your body up to the end's degree. I mean, you know, our injuries are shoulders because we're rotating all the time.

But, you know, you look at foot, I was talking to Lee Dixon earlier this week because he's got a knee issue and I've had some knee issues and he was talking to me about all the ops he's had, you know, from football, ACLs all the time, whatever. Steve Backley had a hip replacement at 39 because he was constantly twisting, you know, to throw a javelin. So we rack our bodies. bodies aren't designed to do six hours a day, you know, repetition. No, they're absolutely not. Another thing that I wanted to ask is that a lot of athletes talk about this mindset

that when they cross a metaphorical white line, when they go and play football, it's a rugby or swimming as well, that they kind of change as people. Did you have to, you know, you become more ruthless, you become more direct, you leave, you know, the Sharon Davis, who's the daughter, the friend, the mother, that's back in the changing room. When you're out there, you want to destroy. So is a champion made or born question, yeah? Yeah. So, a bit of both. Because ultimately, there's got to be something in you that makes you want to win, regardless. And that, I think, is genetic. That is just who you are. And then the other

bit is all the ingredients in the cake there. You know, do you happen to be the right size to do the sport that you want to do. Do you have the right support structure? Do you have the coaching? Do you have the access to the pool? Does your body not break down and enable you to do the training that's required? You know, those are all the things that have to go into making this cake that's got to be presented on the day and absolutely beautifully and so you go off and you win the Olympics or whatever. So it's definitely a bit of both. I mean, if you said to me, you know, if I was playing a game of cards, did I care whether I win or lose? I'll tell you I'll want to win. You know, that's the way that I made, just the same. Michael Jordan has famously,

like that. Like he cannot lose anything. Yeah. You know. It's in your DNA, isn't it? That you, that's what's important to you, you know, that you want to win. I think having a family as a woman definitely makes you a little bit, you know, you change your priorities a little bit. Or a big bit. I mean, my wife was tired of baby. It just, it was a big change. It wasn't a little bit. And it's a change in my man, dad, isn't it? But I think moms in particular, all of a sudden, they just go down that pecking order until they realize that at the bottom of the pecking order, everybody, including the dogs, usually get a funny smile.

Talk to us about losing. It sounds like a loaded question, but it's not. Everybody loses in life. Everybody experience a setback. And sport in many ways is, we talked about it a little bit earlier, is the perfect place to know and learn how to lose well,

how to bounce back. What is your advice? What are your thoughts on people experiencing difficulties and setbacks in life? How do you bounce back from a setback? back. I think it's that understanding of you get something positive out of everything you do, whether it's an experience or just learning it's not what you want to do. You know, you think about lots of youngsters nowadays, you know, trying to pick their options or pick what they want to go

to university or pick what their first job is going to be, you know. And I've always said to my lot, just you go and do it. If it doesn't work, you can change your mind. You can change your mind, go start again, do something totally different. But be brave enough to go and do it. So I think sport for me taught me to be brave. It taught me to just try. things. And if it doesn't work, well, I learned that I didn't want to do it. That's a good lesson. And instead of being afraid to not try. And what was it like to represent your country? I imagine that must have been such a thrill. I was doing it at such a young age. It sounds silly, but I kind of just grew up with it all. You know, I was a question I often get asked,

or it must have been incredibly daunting being at the Olympics at 13. Actually, it's the opposite. Because when you're, yeah, so when you're there as a youngster, you're like, wow, this is cool. And you're not, oh my God, the world's watched me. It doesn't occur to you. What is in your back of your mind as well? I'll be here in four years' time and I'll be really good. Whereas so I went out to my first limits, I'm like, oh, this is fabulous.

I'm getting to find out where the change rooms are, how this works, what an Olympic village is like, what the food halls like. I never thought, oh my God, I'm like a rabbit in the headlights. I was just soaking it all up thinking I've got my future in front of me, which is really positive. It gets really scary when you spent 10 years training and you've got one race coming and you know there's not another one. You know that there's that one race on that one day,

and if you mess that up, there will never be another chance ever. That's quite scary. And that's a difference between an elite athlete and someone who's got loads of talent is that ability to handle pressure. Yeah, I think so. I think the mental strengths to be able to put it into context,

you know, and to understand that is an Olympics. It is really special. However, it's not life and death. You know, something, it was to go drastic, wrong. You will survive. You will still be there the next day. Sharon Davis has been an absolute pleasure speaking with you. We're going to go to locals for our supporters questions that they've already submitted for you. But before we do, we always end with the same question with all our guests,

which is, what's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we really should be? I think the misogyny thing is a real big problem at the moment. I would love to see more men recognizing it and more men standing up for women, particularly in sport. A lot of the time they've sat on the fence and stayed very quiet. So I'd like to see that happen a bit more. Sharon, it's been a pleasure. If people want to buy your book, if people want to find you online,

where's the best place to do that? We're everywhere. We're actually in high street shops as well, which is really lovely. We're on Amazon, yeah, so you can find us pretty much anywhere. Fantastic. Well, thank you for being here for the interview.

Follow us over to locals where we're going to ask Sharon your questions. Does Sharon think we should go back and strip the records slash medals from past steroid users or abusers? Or should we just draw line and move forward from here.