Fears that sport will be the loser as Serena Williams embraces weight loss jabs

The tennis superstar has swapped her racket for a syringe. Other athletes may now follow

- Jessica Hayden Assistant Sports Editor

When Serena Williams appeared on the front of a celebrity magazine last week, tennis racket replaced by a weight-loss syringe, she reopened a thorny debate about sport and weight.

The temptation to use GLP-1 drugs to lose weight, and perhaps gain a competitive advantage, is something that is whispered about in changing rooms and on practice grounds, especially in sports where maintaining a low weight is important, such as cycling and horseracing.

Williams posed for People magazine, looking much slimmer than we are used to seeing her, holding a needle in her hand. The tennis star has lost 2st 3lb using weight-loss medication. “After kids, it’s the medicine my body needed,” she says into the camera in her first advert for Ro, a medical company which sells the drug. It may be no coincidence that her husband Alexis Ohanian is on the Ro board.

Such is Williams's influence, concern may be raised about less famous sportspeople. Paul Struthers, CEO of the Professional Jockeys Association (PJA), told The Observer he is unaware of any jockeys taking the medication, but is “alive to the possibility that some may be tempted”.