Global sports brand Nike is this week at the centre of polarising views, receiving much praise for its latest themed ad featuring athlete moms. 

The minute-long video, released on Sunday (March 14), sought to answer the question ‘Are mothers athletes?’ with heartwarming imagery of women defying the odds, training while pregnant and dominating their respective sports as mothers. 

“To every mother, everywhere: you are the toughest athlete,” Nike captioned the video on Twitter, featuring several post-pregnancy champions such as Jamaican sprint queen Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and tennis great Serena Williams. 

What Nike has failed to acknowledge, amid the fanfare, is that the company has on multiple occasions let down the same women it is choosing to highlight. 

Many Twitter users, ignoring the feel-good aim of the ad, are choosing to hit Nike with the hard facts that it has deserted several pregnant athletes including Allyson Felix, Alysia Montaño and Kara Goucher. 

“There can be no progress until there is an acknowledgement of how they (Nike) have perpetuated systems that disadvantage women,” one man argued.

In a May 2019 op-ed in The New York Times, Felix said she came under pressure from Nike, which, despite all her victories, wanted to pay her 70 per cent less than before while pregnant.

“If that’s what they think I’m worth now, I accept that. What I’m not willing to accept is the enduring status quo around maternity,”  Felix noted.

“I asked Nike to contractually guarantee that I wouldn’t be punished if I didn’t perform at my best in the months surrounding childbirth. I wanted to set a new standard. If I, one of Nike’s most widely marketed athletes, couldn’t secure these protections, who could?” the American sprinter argued.

“Nike declined. We’ve been at a standstill ever since. Ironically, one of the deciding factors for me in signing with Nike nearly a decade ago was what I thought were Nike’s core principles. I could have signed elsewhere for more money,” she added.

The decision triggered major outcry as Felix went on to break her joint record with Usain Bolt as track’s winningest athlete ever, and prompted Nike to announce a new maternity policy for all sponsored athletes later in August. 

The new contract guarantees an athlete’s pay and bonuses for 18 months around pregnancy. 

Nevertheless, the poignant message of Nike’s ad cannot be overlooked as it shows women athletes achieving despite a typecast perception as fragile while pregnant.

More than 20 women around the world were asked to flex their strength as both moms and athletes, as the brand’s latest campaign salutes motherhood for Nike’s new maternity activewear line.

See video below: