{"id":28778,"date":"2016-02-16T11:55:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T17:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=28778"},"modified":"2016-02-16T12:00:01","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T18:00:01","slug":"gladiators-go-glam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/gladiators-go-glam\/","title":{"rendered":"Gladiators go glam"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Caley Chelios<\/strong><\/p>\n

Olympic skeleton racer Katie Uhlaendar, 31, flies 80 mph head first on a 37-inch sled down frozen tracks. She is a glamorous girl on fire, with an aerodynamic speed suit on her body and lash extensions, red hair extensions and Mac lip liner under her helmet.<\/p>\n

For World Cup competitions in Austria and Italy, she packs her 63-pound sled, weightlifting shoes, cleats \u2013 and makeup. \u201cIt\u2019s crazy trying to maintain beauty on tour,\u201d said Uhlaendar, who likes to look and feel good. \u201cI do my hair and my lashes for me.\u201d <\/p>\n

No one tracks how many elite women athletes wear makeup, but glam shots are the norm in USA team-bio pictures and in Instagram posts. Uhlaendar estimates that nearly 75 percent of world-class female athletes wear makeup during competition.<\/p>\n

Like Uhlaendar, women\u2019s wrestlers and Olympic weight lifters try to command respect in \u201cmasculine\u201d sports, balancing the duality of image and beauty with toughness.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re expected to smile, be ditzy and cute all the time,\u201d said Uhlaendar.<\/p>\n

For decades, female athletes have gone glam, at least in part to land jobs and sponsors. Former U.S. national swimming champion Esther Williams became a 1940\u2019s pin-up girl and movie star. And 1970\u2019s tennis star Chris Evert became famous for winning major tournaments but also for her chic style and hair ribbons on the court.<\/p>\n

Olympians Lolo Jones, a hurdler and bobsledder, Alex Morgan, a soccer player, and Lindsey Vonn, a skier have attracted attention for their skills and their looks. In fact, Vonn poses in nothing but a body-painted \u201cbikini\u201d in the upcoming 2016 Sports Illustrated annual swimsuit addition.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigh school male athletes make a million dollars and don\u2019t have to take off their clothes and pose sexually,\u201d said Jennifer Ring, professor of political science and feminist theory and author of \u201cStolen Bases: Why American Girls Don\u2019t Play Baseball.\u201d \u201cDanica Patrick has to put on a bathing suit and sprawl on her car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seventeen-year-old wrestler Maya Nelson, who wears mascara and jewelry off the mat, said society wrongly associates being feminine and attractive with putting on makeup. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of beauty in wrestling in our strength and our agility on the mats,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cI wanted to be daddy\u2019s little girl. I started wrestling when I was four and daddy\u2019s little girl didn\u2019t work out so well.\u201d<\/p>\n

For years, Ronda Rousey, who won a bronze medal in judo in the 2008 Olympics and reigned as UFC women\u2019s bantamweight champion until last November, defied the need to appear like Kate Upton. Even though she is one of three 2016 Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover models, she\u2019s wearing a one-piece. \u201cShe is a feminine-looking woman, but she doesn\u2019t go out of her way to look sexual or overdo the make up and polish,\u201d said Ring.<\/p>\n

Unlike female figure skaters and gymnasts, women in power sports may unconsciously feel societal pressure to signal their heterosexuality. \u201cA lot of it is homophobic,\u201d said Ring.<\/p>\n

But Nelson admires Rousey for her \u201chard-core\u201d attitude. \u201cPeople always tell me, you know you don\u2019t look like a wrestler,\u201d Nelson said. \u201cAnd I say, \u2018Well, what\u2019s a wrestler supposed to look like?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Wrestlers like Nelson and Brittney Roberts, No. 2-ranked in the U.S. at 72 kg, are using the make up and glitz as an accessory not a necessity.<\/p>\n

\u201cNowadays I hardly ever see girls wear makeup before practice,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut after practice, if we go to a dinner, we\u2019ll dress up and put on make up.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s beauty and grace in Olympic lifting, too, said 20-year-old weightlifter Deirdre Lenzsch, an Olympic hopeful who highlights her long curly blond hair. \u201cI respect my body for being strong and being capable. It\u2019s an incredible machine like a car, but that doesn\u2019t mean that you can\u2019t give it a nice paint job.\u201d<\/p>\n

She wears mascara even when she\u2019s tossing up 80 kilos on a clean and jerk. \u201cI consider [makeup] to be a form of art, and I think it gives you a little bit of confidence,\u201d she said. \u201cI enjoy putting on makeup. Something about looking pretty gives me confidence, but being strong does not have to be separated from being beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo at top: Katie Uhlaender drives to training. (Katie Uhlaender)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Caley Chelios Olympic skeleton racer Katie Uhlaendar, 31, flies 80 mph head first on a 37-inch sled down frozen tracks. She is a glamorous girl on fire, with an aerodynamic speed suit on her body and lash extensions, red hair extensions and Mac lip liner under her helmet. For World Cup competitions in Austria […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":266,"featured_media":29601,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,585],"tags":[993,192,1363,1362],"class_list":["post-28778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-winter-2016","tag-olympics","tag-promo","tag-rousey","tag-women-wrestlers"],"yoast_head":"\nGladiators go glam - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/gladiators-go-glam\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gladiators go glam - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Caley Chelios Olympic skeleton racer Katie Uhlaendar, 31, flies 80 mph head first on a 37-inch sled down frozen tracks. 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