Geva Mentor’s egg-freezing experience spotlights complex fertility choices for elite athletes

Geva Mentor underwent egg freezing in 2019 while living in Melbourne after playing in her fourth World Cup and has described severe pain on waking from the egg retrieval procedure. The England netball great’s account comes as clubs and federations, including Chelsea and the Spanish Football Federation, have announced support for players seeking fertility preservation.

Egg-freezing, in which a woman’s eggs are collected, frozen and stored for potential future use, is being presented by some as a way to help preserve fertility or delay motherhood; for athletes whose peak years often coincide with prime fertility, it can be an attractive option. Mentor, widely regarded as netball’s greatest goalkeeper with 175 caps, six World Cup appearances, a Commonwealth gold in 2018 and a 24-year career that ended with her retirement in 2025, chose to freeze her eggs at age 35 because she wanted to safeguard future options. She said she was not in a relationship at the time, was living in Melbourne, and deliberately scheduled the treatment in the off-season going into pre-season so she would have time to recover if needed. Mentor later conceived naturally and has a daughter, but her frozen eggs remain available for future use.

Mentor said she continued to train through monitoring appointments and pre-season work until she took the final injection that “basically releases the eggs into position for extraction the next day.” She described the retrieval, performed under sedation or general anaesthetic and typically lasting 15-30 minutes, as feeling like “43 golf balls shoved in my lower region,” and added: “They pierced my vaginal wall 43 times, which meant that I was probably on a bit of a risk for bleeding and blood clots.” She recalled waking and starting to cry “like bawling,” and said the process left her unable to return to full training for two weeks because of heavy bleeding, though she called the procedure “an insurance policy for me.”

Professor Kirsty Elliott-Sale, head of the Centre for Excellence for Women in Sport at Manchester Metropolitan University, welcomed fertility support but emphasised it should form part of a wider package of care. “I am delighted for any player who will benefit,” she said, adding that clubs must ensure players who want to have children during their careers can do so and that maternity and pregnancy provision be well funded alongside egg-freezing. She warned egg-freezing is not a guarantee of future motherhood and urged athletes to ask detailed questions before proceeding.

The article notes specific biological and practical uncertainties that underpin that warning: the number and quality of eggs collected vary, some eggs may not survive thawing, those that do may fail to fertilise, and even resulting embryos may not implant or produce a pregnancy. Elliott-Sale also flagged gaps in knowledge about logistics around elite sport, saying: “One of the things that none of us know right now is how long you should take away from sport, if indeed you need to take any time away from sport to do this procedure.” She questioned whether funding would extend beyond freezing to cover storage and future treatment, saying: "It's one thing to fund the freezing."

There are also anti-doping considerations: fertility drugs used to stimulate egg production are banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, so athletes must declare them and seek a Therapeutic Use Exemption (TUE) to take a prohibited substance for a specified time. Clubs and federations have started to respond: Chelsea’s fertility fund reportedly totals £189,000, distributed among 27 players—equivalent to £7,000 each—while a cycle of egg-freezing typically costs about £3,350 plus medication and storage, and the full process including thawing and embryo transfer can cost £7,000-£8,000, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority. Former Chelsea goalkeeper Carly Telford said players will have “their own pot of money that's for them to use and dip into whenever they like,” and added: “I really hope that more clubs are looking at it.” Spain international Alexia Putellas described her federation’s move as “a huge step forward” and said: "The federation understands that you're serving your country at the expense of your biological clock… that you can't simply pause your career to become a mother because you need your body to do your job." In contrast, Ana Peleteiro-Compaore Brion asked on Instagram: "Is this measure intended to make it easier for women to be mothers or is it intended to make it easier for them not to be while they're playing?" Elliott-Sale said the offer must be voluntary, properly explained and part of broader maternity support, stating: "I think for sure it's a great offer, it's a great choice and opportunity, but it needs to go alongside other considerations."

Key questions remain unresolved for athletes and those who fund and regulate sport: how much time, if any, should be taken away from competition to undergo treatment, whether employers will cover ongoing storage and future treatment costs, and how anti-doping rules and TUEs will be managed in practice. Those operational and policy issues, supporters and critics agree, must be settled alongside any expansion of fertility funding for players.