From Podium to Perimenopause: A Champion’s Decline
Clara Hughes, the only athlete to capture medals in both Summer and Winter Games, spent two decades pushing her body to its limits. Through relentless training and sheer determination she became a six‑time Olympic medallist in cycling and speed skating. The triumph, however, gave way to a silent crisis in her late forties. Exhaustion, insomnia, sudden rages, joint pain, hot flashes and an inability to recall simple names marked her days. “I was losing my mind. I really felt like I was losing my grip on reality,” she recalled in a video interview from her home north of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. “What I was feeling inside was so intensely frightening and destabilising, initially, I didn’t link it with menopause.”
The turning point arrived when two doctors prescribed antidepressants rather than the hormone therapy she required. Left without proper support, Hughes embarked on a turbulent quest for answers that would lead her down an unconventional path.
Desperate for Relief: The Turn to Psychoactive Therapies
Faced with a medical system that offered little, Hughes turned to a medicine cabinet no clinician would sanction. She experimented with MDMA, ketamine, LSD, 5‑MeO‑DMT, 3‑MMC, golden halo mushrooms and San Pedro cactus—substances that remain illegal in Canada. “I had to go hard — scary hard — in order to become gentler with myself,” she later wrote. Some of these compounds were unfamiliar to her, yet the desperation drove her to try them all.
These experiences, alongside guided psychedelic sessions, surfaced long‑buried memories of abuse by her late father. The process was harrowing, but it also opened a vault of emotions she had locked away for decades. “I’ve been very nervous about this book, very afraid of this book because it’s so exposing and I do feel very vulnerable in it,” she admitted. Yet she also recognised the risk and the potential for others to find solace. “I want to share those things. And I know there’s a risk — obviously the illegality of this. Everything I did was underground; it was not a clinical study. There are risks in how people come at you after sharing those things, and it’s worth the risk if this can touch one woman out there and help her come back to life.”
Hughes stresses that her journey is not a prescription for others: “It’s a path that I would not recommend for anyone.” Instead, she hopes the narrative will inspire deeper self‑reflection and connection.
Unveiling Hidden Pain: Memories, Therapy and Healing
The memoir, titled Learning to Breathe, launches on 13 October 2026. It chronicles not only the physical turmoil of menopause but also the emotional odyssey that followed. After years of backpacking thousands of kilometres a year in an attempt to “walk away” from feelings she could not name, Hughes later identified the root cause as perimenopause. “‘I can’t do this anymore’ was actually perimenopause, which I didn’t know about at the time,” she explained.
Her eventual consultation with a women’s health specialist brought hormone therapy, which swiftly eradicated the hot flashes that had once left her drenched during public speaking engagements. “I can wear wool again! I can wear nice blazers when I do speeches,” she said with a smile. This relief, combined with the psychedelic work, allowed her to confront the pain linked to her father and, ultimately, to release it.
Now, Hughes finds a paradoxical gratitude in the crisis. “I’m even beginning to feel grateful for menopause,” she wrote. “Sure, it’s a physical and emotional s‑‑storm. But on the other side lies a meadow blooming with empathy. When our bodies slow down, we naturally turn inward. And we find a whole universe in there. Without menopause I wouldn’t have tried psychedelics, and without psychedelics I wouldn’t have spied the Vault. I guess I’m grateful that menopause f‑‑ed me up, because it also cracked me open.”
From Crisis to Acceptance: The Path Forward
At 54, Hughes continues to champion mental‑health awareness, having founded the Bell Let’s Talk campaign and authored her first memoir, Open Heart, Open Mind, in 2015. Her new work is positioned as an invitation to others who feel broken or misunderstood. “For me, connection has always been the goal, and I feel many people may relate to the new me: people who’ve been broken down and found ways to build themselves back up,” she writes. “People who need to know they’re not alone. More than anything, I hope my story can help people connect back to themselves.”
The book arrives at a time when menopause is increasingly recognised as a health crisis, especially within the Canadian healthcare landscape. Hughes’s candid disclosure adds a powerful voice to the conversation, challenging stigma and encouraging a more nuanced understanding of mid‑life hormonal transitions.
Why it Matters
Clara Hughes’s candid exploration of menopause, mental health and unconventional therapeutic routes resonates far beyond the world of elite sport. By laying bare her vulnerabilities and the risks she took, she not only humanises a condition that remains under‑served in Canada, but also offers a blueprint for authentic self‑discovery. Her story underscores the urgent need for better medical support for women navigating hormonal changes and highlights the growing, albeit shadowed, interest in psychedelic‑assisted therapies. In sharing her journey, Hughes helps to destigmatise conversations around menopause, mental health and trauma, potentially guiding countless women toward the self‑connection and healing that she now embraces.
