Hello, I'm Dr. Louise Newsome and welcome to my podcast. I'm a GP and menopause specialist and I run the Newsome Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre here in Stratford-Bron-Avon. I'm also the founder of the Menopause charity and the Menopause support app called Balance.

On the podcast, I will be joined each week by an exciting guest to help provide evidence-based

information and advice about both the perimenopause and the

menopause. So today on the podcast, I've got someone called Jan Berkmaier with me, who I've been

frantically Googling and very, very impressed with the photos that I've seen of her amazing sport.

And she's come to talk today about sport and women, and very tropical because the Commonwealth Games are just finishing in Birmingham near where I live.

So there's been a lot of spotlight on women, actually, and sport, which is great.

So thanks, Jan, for coming today to talk about you and your experiences. Thank you, my pleasure. I think it's the first time in any

sporting games where women have actually had more medals to go after than men, which has

got to be a move in the right direction. It's so exciting, isn't it? I went and watched some of,

I watched some table tennis live,

and I also watched netball, and it was Uganda playing. And they were just like the most amazing

ballerinas. They were so fast. They were so brilliant. And I'm not someone that's really,

I like watching a bit of tennis, but I don't really watch sport on television at all. But to go there live and to soak up

this atmosphere and just to see people at their prime and amazing. That's incredible. So tell us a bit,

if you don't mind, about how you got into sport and cycling, what you do and how you've done it.

Sure. Well, it's a long story, so I'll keep it short. I mean, I had a very

active childhood, but probably lost a lot of that. When I left university, I became very focused on

my career. So in fact, I only got into cycling competitively in my mid-30s. I got into it just

for health and fitness, but I quite quickly found that the competitive spirit burned very strongly within me.

It was encouraged to ride some time trials from there, a couple of road races.

I met my husband through the Twickenham Cycle Club, and he encouraged me to try track cycling.

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