The pressure that makes Olympians perform worse | Dominique Condo
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2026
⏱️ 14 minutes
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Summary
Why do we celebrate appearance over ability in sports? Performance scientist Dominique Condo explores why so many elite female athletes — women with Olympic medals, world records and championship trophies — report body image concerns that end up hindering their performance. She offers a series of subtle shifts we can make to help any athlete stay focused on building strength, resilience and confidence.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:12.4 | I'm your host, Elise Hume. |
| 0:14.4 | How much does body type really affect athletic performance? |
| 0:18.8 | In this talk, sports nutritionist Dominique Kondo explores the hidden |
| 0:22.8 | pressures that female athletes |
| 0:24.7 | face and why so many women still |
| 0:26.7 | feel judged more for how they look |
| 0:28.3 | than for what they can achieve. |
| 0:30.8 | Drawing on research and real-world experience |
| 0:32.8 | with elite athletes, she shares |
| 0:34.5 | practical ways to build cultures that value |
| 0:36.6 | strength, confidence, and well-being. |
| 0:48.2 | 4.35am, the alarm goes off. 5am. A.m., a.m, a 50K training ride. |
| 0:57.4 | 6.30am. |
| 0:59.0 | A strength session. |
| 1:01.1 | Often fighting through muscle fatigue and sometimes even period cramps. |
| 1:07.1 | 8 a.m. breakfast with a nutrition plan calculated to the gram. 9 a.m. breakfast, were the nutrition plan calculated to the gram. |
| 1:14.3 | 9am, off to work or university, because many female athletes juggled jobs or study with their sporting careers. |
| 1:24.9 | Now that's a fairly typical morning for many elite female athletes, |
| 1:30.6 | strong, disciplined, driven and constantly measured. |
| 1:37.8 | Isn't the female body extraordinary? |
| 1:42.4 | It adapts, it endures, it creates life, it recovers from injury, responds to training, |
... |
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