Martina Navratilova: 'Women are still judged by a different metric than men'

8 snips

Jun 22, 2025

Martina Navratilova, a tennis legend and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, shares her incredible journey from Czechoslovakia to the top of the tennis world. She reflects on her defection to the U.S. at 18 and the challenges of being one of the first openly gay athletes. Martina discusses her battles with cancer, offering insights on resilience and living fully. The conversation also addresses the complexities of fairness in women's sports, especially regarding transgender athletes, and highlights the ongoing gender biases women face in athletics.

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ANECDOTE

Cancer Battles and Lessons

Martina battled cancer twice, including throat and breast cancer simultaneously.
The treatment was brutal but taught her not to sweat small, fixable problems and appreciate every day.

ANECDOTE

Defecting to America at 18

Martina Navratilova defected from Czechoslovakia to the US at 18 due to government restrictions on her career.
Her dad advised her not to tell her mother or come back, fearing imprisonment if she did.

INSIGHT

Gender Bias in Sports

Women athletes face harsher judgments than men, often criticized for competitiveness.
Men rarely experience such scrutiny, revealing ongoing gender double standards in sport.

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Amol Rajan speaks to Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest-ever tennis players, about her life and career. The story of her rise to the top of the game is as remarkable as the number of tournaments she managed to win.

Born behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia in 1956, she was 11-years-old when she watched Soviet tanks roll in to the country as Moscow sought to reassert control and quash political reform.

Navratilova, who played in her first tennis tournament when she was eight, rose to both national and international prominence in the years that followed.

But in 1975, following the Czech government’s efforts to control her tennis career, she defected. Aged 18, Navratilova sought asylum in the United States, where she later became an American citizen. During the late 1970s and 1980s she dominated the international tennis circuit, and by the time she retired, she had won 59 major singles and doubles titles.

But throughout her life, Navratilova has generated headlines on the front pages of newspapers, as well as the back. She came out as being gay in 1981, a rare thing for high-profile athletes to do at the time, and quickly became a prominent figure in the gay rights movement. More recently, however, she has found herself at odds with some groups due to her views on transgender athletes.

She has also battled cancer on two separate occasions.

Thank you to the Amol Rajan Interviews team for their help in making this programme. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Amol Rajan Producers: Ben Cooper, Joel Mapp Sound: Dave O’Neill Editor: Nick Holland

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(Image: Martina Navratilova. Credit: Roy Rochlin/Getty Images)