Would having breast reduction surgery be cheating for a professional female athlete?

No, IMO.
It’s an accepted medical procedure.
You have to take some things on faith. That a woman would not allow her breasts to be reduced 100% for that reason, and that a medical doctor would refuse to do the procedure.

Given his choice of swimwear, Micheal Phelps might gain a bit by having his – er – groin – er – streamlined, but that ain’t gonna happen.

No. I can’t imagine how it would be cheating. I also can’t imagine anyone doing it.

No. The loss of extra body fat can only improve their performance. Like the Amazon warriors who cut off a breast so it would not impede the bow string.

No. It’s not cheating. I doubt they had surgery, they likely are small breasted to begin with, and add to that swimmers are very lean anyway.

Why can’t you imagine someone doing it @elbanditoroso? I would love to do it, but the doc said “No.”

@JLeslie They start these things when they are young girls, 6, 7, 8. They can’t know how big their breasts are going to get. At 13, 14, when they start having to deal with it, they already know they’re professional grade and the Olympics are in reach. Except for that.
And breast size has nothing to do with lean. It’s not like stomach fat or leg fat. In high school, at 5’8”, I weighed 110 pounds and had a size C+ cup.

Of course it has something to do with being lean! Sure some girls are a size two on the bottom and double D’s on top, but their boobs are still holding fat, their fat just goes to their breasts. I’m not saying big breasted women can just diet diet diet their breasts away, females come in many shapes and sizes, and some girls have large breasts for their stature, no question.

The majority of girls/women easily can have their breasts vary about two cup sizes depending on weather they are on the low side of normal or the high side of normal for their height. I’m a D right now. Most of my adulthood I was a C. When I was a teen I was a B. If I weighed what I did when I was 15 I’d likely be a B again. Same height, same bones, just fatter. If I swam for hours daily when I was a young woman I’d have been maybe even smaller breasted.

I would not allow my 14,15,16 year old have major surgery to swim. That’s just me.

I don’t think my boobs get in the way of my stroke anyway? You mean just drag in the water? They give me a little more boyancy probably. Now that I’m heavier it’s so much easier to float.

Your boobs don’t get in the way of your stroke. They get in the way in terms of drag and in terms of shifting your direction, which can add a crucial 1/100th of a second on to your time. When you and I swim we aren’t swimming for competition We’re swimming for recreation. That’s why I specified “professional aesthetes.”

When I was a teen I was a C++. I’m still a C++. I wonder sometimes what would have been different when I was into track, volleyball and basket ball as a teen if I didn’t have these extra pounds of swaying fat on my chest. Maybe I could have played college ball.

@Dutchess_III For sure body type can stop us from being able to pursue certain sports. However, I’m fairly resistant to the idea of starving oneself or doing major surgery because puberty might cause a girl to no longer be among the top competitors. A schoolmate used to lose her period while in the throws of training. This isn’t that unusual for sports like swimming and running. She never starved herself, she was naturally thin and constantly burning calories while training. Still, I have my reservations regarding young teen girls losing their periods from excessive athletic training.

Gymnasts and dancers are often encouraged to stay very thin. Female gymnasts look very odd to me in recent years. Their bodies are are so stocky now. It’s more and more extreme. Dancers don’t seem be quite as skinny as they used to be, There was somewhat of a backlash a while back. Still, ballerinas are expected to be thin and small backsides. I think a big ass is probably worse for a girl wanting to do ballet than big breasts. Although, neither is good in that profession.

I’m sure female Olympian swimmers have small breasts because they’re training for crazy hours every day! Those women are burning several thousand calories a day easily.

I don’t think a breast reduction should be considered cheating, although I do wonder if someone who was born with webbed fingers/toes might enjoy a competitive advantage.

@Dutchess_III “And breast size has nothing to do with lean. It’s not like stomach fat or leg fat. In high school, at 5’8”, I weighed 110 pounds and had a size C+ cup.”

I’m guessing you also hadn’t developed a muscular athletic physique from childhood ether.

@kritiper – egads, that Amazon thing is a persistent myth.

If being transgendered is deemed legitimate by the IOC, I’m pretty sure breast reduction wouldn’t be considered cheating.

Gymnasts and swimmers are both extremely lean and extremely muscular. The average teenager that we see in regular life is not in any way physically similar to an Olympic gymnast. The average teenager may be lean and she may be somewhat muscular if she does sports but she has not had the training from toddlerhood, all day in the gym and/or pool that an Olympian has. I think that’s why swimmers and gymnasts have small chests. Of course I’m open to being incorrect.

@Seek Yes, but practical.

It would be terribly impractical to cut off one’s body parts in order to facilitate archery, when (if it were even a problem) one could easily bind their breasts with cloth.

The whole idea of Amazon women being breastless (in whole or in part) was Greek propaganda intended by an extremely patriarchal society to remove the feminine qualities from the warrior-women.

@Darth_Algar you said, ”I’m guessing you also hadn’t developed a muscular athletic physique from childhood ether.” Not at an Olympic level, but I was in shape. I was quite active in athletics from elementary school on.

Yeah @Seek. Boobs don’t get in the way of archery. Dang it. That reminds me. I need to get my archery “range” “built.” I knew I was forgetting something.

One of the odd side notes about Olympic caliber women athletes, especially teens, is that the very low body fat causes delayed menarche and irregular to nonexistent menses.

A friend who was training for triathlons and had her body fat down to 8% stopped having periods until she eased her training and ate a higher fat diet.

There is that @zenvelo. My daughter didn’t develop much until after she dropped out of gymnastics at the age of 13.

And, today a question was posed, could swimmers get their ears removed?

Well, guess I was on to something!

@Dutchess_III ”Not at an Olympic level, but I was in shape. I was quite active in athletics from elementary school on.”

And there’s your answer in bold. Your “quite active” and “in shape” isn’t even comparable to Olympic caliber athletes.

I know that.

On NPR today they had a guest that said doping at the Olympics is documented as far back as, I believe, 1908. A guy was using a mixture of strychnine and alcohol. Back then everyone was cool with it – just keeping up with scientific advances. Amphetamines speeded everyone up in the 1930’s.
Wasn’t until the 1960’s that they started to care about doping. When it went mainstream recreational.