Industry: Work

They are Olympic medalists, champions, and world-record holders. But as Nike-sponsored athletes, Alysia Montaño, Allyson Felix, and Phoebe Wright are also mothers who risked their reputations and legal action by revealing the ugly truth about women and sports: If you get pregnant, your sponsors are legally allowed to stop paying you. Montaño’s path to activism began when she, along with Wright, cooperated with a story in the New York Times this year that laid the facts bare. Felix followed with an op-ed of her own, triggering an outcry that forced the apparel maker to announce it would end financial penalties for pregnant athletes. Montaño talked to the Times off the record for almost two years before she just did it: “There was the nondisclosure agreement, but I knew the conversation could open doors in terms of equality and maternal health,” she says.