+
upworthy
Most Shared

9 Olympians you may not have known were dads because people often only talk about moms.

Meet the moms and dads at the Rio Olympics.

41-year-old Uzbekistan native Oksana Chusovitina is the oldest female gymnast in Olympic history. She also happens to be a mom, which is often the very next thing you learn about her.

Chusovitina at the 2011 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Tokyo. Photo by Adam Pretty/Getty Images.

It's wonderful and inspiring that Chusovitina is a mom to a 17-year-old as well as a seriously talented Olympian at twice the age of her competitors. However, the fact that she's a mom has become a weirdly necessary addition to her story despite the fact that it has nothing to do with her skills as an athlete.


And she's far from the only Olympian-slash-mom to have received this sort of treatment.

Swimmer Dana Vollmer won silver and bronze medals, but it's difficult to find a headline that doesn't mention that she gave birth a mere 17 months earlier. Nia Ali, who's competing in the 100-meter hurdle, has been surrounded by articles wondering how does she do it and reporting on how she raised her infant son while training. Kerri Walsh Jennings was five weeks pregnant when she won her third gold medal for volleyball, and it's still one of the first things mentioned about her. Sure, winning medals while pregnant is pretty amazing, but that was four years ago.

Kerri Walsh Jennings and Misty May-Treanor holding Jennings' kids at the 2012 London Olympics. Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images.

There's a post on Team USA's website dedicated to its 10 competitors who are moms — but not one for dads despite the fact that there are more than four times that many dads representing Team USA.

Much of the attention Olympian moms receive may be because of the impact pregnancy and new motherhood can have on competing. Considering that intensive training may affect fertility, it's not surprising that giving birth could also cause some difficulties. Women's bodies can change dramatically both during and after they're pregnant. Couple that with the physical and mental strain that occurs during training and competition, and it becomes clear these moms are champions through and through.

Being an athlete and a mother is amazing, but it's not an impossible feat, and more often than not, it's not something women do alone.

Olympian dads are also working hard to "have it all" by balancing training with raising kids.

It's just not assumed to be such a huge feat when a dad can also be an Olympian because we generally don't associate dads with child care, and we assume they have a wife or someone taking care of their homes and families while they're working hard. Which is an absurd double standard.

So here we go.

Here are nine Olympic dads:

1. Michael Phelps, swimming

The little man loved the water today!! @boomerrphelps and I got some extra laps in today!! #mpswim

A photo posted by Michael Phelps (@m_phelps00) on

Phelps' son Boomer has been getting a lot of attention lately because he's been sleeping through his dad's gold-medal-winning races.

"I’m always worried that he’s sleeping right, breathing right, getting enough food, getting better,” Phelps told The New York Times.

2. Jordan Burroughs, wrestling

"There’s nothing harder than being a dad," Jordan told NBC Olympics (though Jennings and her gold-medal-earned-while-pregnant may beg to differ).

3. David Boudia, diving

"This is my job. More than diving, my job is to make sure my family is well taken care of," Boudia told NBC Olympics.

4. David Plummer, swimmer

Best taper buddies ever

A photo posted by David Plummer (@plumm006) on

"I have just tried to streamline everything else in my life so that I can spend as much time with him and my wife as I can," he told USA Swimming. "There is nothing more important to me right now than my family."

5. Carmelo Anthony, basketball

King jumping in on some conference calls #KidMogul #StayMe7o

A photo posted by @carmeloanthony on

"[Fatherhood] has made me see things different. I now think twice about my actions. Everything I do affects my son Kiyan,” King told BCK.

6. John Nunn, race walker

The quote in the tweet says it all.

7. Tervel Dlagnev, wrestling

"I’m now a two-time Olympian, but I’m most proud of being a husband and a dad," Dlagnev told Rock Tape.

8. Tony Azevedo, water polo

"One of the ways we get my son to sleep is by saying, 'When you sleep, you grow!'" Azevedo told Us Weekly.

9. Justin Gatlin, track and field

Day one he wore me OUT but day two..... Daddy won 😴😴😴😄😄😄😄

A photo posted by justingatlin (@justingatlin) on

"I’m trying to move mountains for him, so I’ve got to go out there with the intent to really try to do it," Gatlin told Us Weekly.

In their own words, these dads-slash-athletes are just as much proud and involved parents as Olympian moms are. The way they're talked about should reflect that.

Just because these dadthletes, if you will, didn't experience physical body changes to bring their kids into the world doesn't mean their roles as parents aren't as notable as their female Olympian peers'.

So let's stop directing all the parenting credit to Olympic moms (or subsequently giving credit for them winning medals to their husbands) and eliminate the double standard of coverage for male and female athletes. If motherhood must be included when writing and reporting on the achievements of female athletes, then fatherhood should be reported on for male athletes. That way, hopefully, the idea of a mom who is also an athlete will stop being seen as an "impossible feat" andathletes who are dads can show that child care is something they participate in too as equals.

A pitbull stares at the window, looking for the mailman.


Dogs are naturally driven by a sense of purpose and a need for belonging, which are all part of their instinctual pack behavior. When a dog has a job to do, it taps into its needs for structure, purpose, and the feeling of contributing to its pack, which in a domestic setting translates to its human family.

But let’s be honest: In a traditional domestic setting, dogs have fewer chores they can do as they would on a farm or as part of a rescue unit. A doggy mom in Vancouver Island, Canada had fun with her dog’s purposeful uselessness by sharing the 5 “chores” her pitbull-Lab mix does around the house.

Keep ReadingShow less

A beautiful cruise ship crossing the seas.

Going on a cruise can be an incredible getaway from the stresses of life on the mainland. However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t an element of danger when living on a ship 200-plus feet high, traveling up to 35 miles per hour and subject to the whims of the sea.

An average of about 19 people go overboard every year, and only around 28% survive. Cruise ship lawyer Spencer Aronfeld explained the phenomenon in a viral TikTok video, in which he also revealed the secret code the crew uses when tragedy happens.

Keep ReadingShow less

A woman looking at her phone while sitting on the toilet.


One of the most popular health trends over the last few years has been staying as hydrated as possible, evidenced by the massive popularity of 40-oz Stanely Quencher cups. The theory among those who obsess over hydration is that, when you pee clear, you’ve removed all the waste in your body and are enjoying the incredible benefits of being 100% hydrated. Congratulations.

However, according to Dr. Sermed Mezher, an NHS doctor in the UK, peeing clear isn’t always a sign of being healthy.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Kudos to the heroes who had 90 seconds to save lives in the Key Bridge collapse

The loss of 6 lives is tragic, but the dispatch recording shows it could have been so much worse.

Representative image by Gustavo Fring/Pexels

The workers who responded to the Dali's mayday call saved lives with their quick response.

As more details of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore emerge, it's becoming more apparent how much worse this catastrophe could have been.

Just minutes before 1:30am on March 26, shortly after leaving port in Baltimore Harbor, a cargo ship named Dali lost power and control of its steering, sending it careening into a structural pillar on Key Bridge. The crew of the Dali issued a mayday call at 1:26am to alert authorities of the power failure, giving responders crucial moments to prepare for a potential collision. Just 90 seconds later, the ship hit a pylon, triggering a total collapse of the 1.6-mile bridge into the Patapsco River.

Dispatch audio of those moments shows the calm professionalism and quick actions that limited the loss of life in an unexpected situation where every second counted.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

Yale's pep band had to miss the NCAA tournament. University of Idaho said, 'We got you.'

In an act of true sportsmanship, the Vandal band learned Yale's fight song, wore their gear and cheered them on.

Courtesy of University of Idaho

The Idaho Vandals answered the call when Yale needed a pep band.

Yale University and the University of Idaho could not be more different. Ivy League vs. state school. East Coast vs. Pacific Northwest. City vs. farm town. But in the first two rounds of the NCAA basketball tournament, extenuating circumstances brought them together as one, with the Bulldogs and the Vandals becoming the "Vandogs" for a weekend.

When Yale made it to the March Madness tournament, members of the school's pep band had already committed to other travel plans during spring break. They couldn't gather enough members to make the trek across the country to Spokane, Washington, so the Yale Bulldogs were left without their fight song unless other arrangements could be made.

When University of Idaho athletic band director Spencer Martin got wind of the need less than a week before Yale's game against Auburn, he sent out a message to his band members asking if anyone would be interested in stepping in. The response was a wave of immediate yeses, so Martin got to work arranging instruments and the students dedicated themselves to learning Yale's fight song and other traditional Yale pep songs.

Keep ReadingShow less

An English doctor named Edward Jenner took incredible risks to try to rid his world of smallpox. Because of his efforts and the efforts of scientists like him, the only thing between deadly diseases like the ones below and extinction are people who refuse to vaccinate their kids. Don't be that parent.

Unfortunately, because of the misinformation from the anti-vaccination movement, some of these diseases have trended up in a really bad way over the past several years.

Keep ReadingShow less