As we celebrate International Women’s Day and the achievements of strong women leaders driving us toward gender equity, we must also honor the athletes who have long fought against the barriers imposed on them because of their gender.
Sports have long served as a platform for advocating gender equality across various fields. One powerful example is the 2019 U.S. Women’s Soccer team’s lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation, which highlighted the wage gap and ultimately led to a commitment to equalize pay between the men’s and women’s teams. Similarly, athletes like Allyson Felix and Alysia Montaño have boldly challenged the ‘motherhood penalty,’ rejecting restrictive maternity contracts to demonstrate that mothers can return to competitive racing stronger and faster than ever.
Despite this progress, female athletes still face stereotypes every day, but TrackGirlz has always been at the forefront of breaking these barriers; these athletes exemplify TrackGirlz’s core values of excellence, boldness, and resilience, by believing in their own capabilities and proving these limited ideas wrong to inspire new generations of girls in track.
Women’s sports are not interesting enough.
It’s no secret that women’s sports has been having a revolution. This past March, the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship game exceeded the viewership of the men’s game for the first time ever with an astonishing 18.7 million viewers, beating out the 2023 World Series Games, NBA Finals, and the men’s NCAA Championship Game.
But basketball is not the only women’s sport people are watching. In the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, women represented almost half of the athletes competing and proved themselves to be the ones to watch. On the day Sha’Carri Richardson and Melissa Jefferson raced the 100m, 34.6 million viewers tuned in to watch the Games. Meanwhile, 30.7 million viewers tuned in on the day Team USA’s 4x400m relay—featuring Shamier Little, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Gabby Thomas, and Alexis Holmes—secured gold. In total, the women of the Paris Games drew over 1.3 billion viewers.
This progress may be recent, but women’s sports fans are now here to stay. Over 53% of Americans say that they’ve been watching women’s sports for three years or less, but 73% say they now watch women’s sports consistently. This jump in viewership has also meant a jump in revenue. 2024 marked the first time in history that women’s sports surpassed $1 billion in revenue.
Many of these athletes have also gained significant social media presences, leading to big brand sponsorships and greater viewer engagement. According to The Female Athlete Project, female athletes get twice the engagement on social media than their male counterparts. Many TrackGirlz are gaining this recognition starting in college, like Katelyn Tuohy, Parker Valby, and Mia Rogan, all with over 100k followers on Instagram as they begin to transition into their pro careers.
People are watching TrackGirlz. TrackGirlz represent excellence.
Women are not as good as men.
The gap between men and women’s world records has been drastically decreasing since the passing of Title IX and increased opportunities for women in sport. In 1972, the fastest men’s marathon time was 2:10:30 (Frank Shorter) and the fastest recorded women’s time was 2:55:45 (Cheryl Bridges). Today, the men’s time has dropped to 2:02:05 (Sabastian Sawe), but the women’s time has dramatically dropped down to 2:09:56 (Ruth Chepngetich), an incredible 45 minutes faster and under the world record in ’72.
Studies also show that the longer the race, the smaller the gap. A joint study by the International Association of Ultrarunners and RunRepeat found that women are faster than men in distances over 195 miles. This past year, British ultrarunner Jasmin Paris became the first woman to ever finish the infamous Barkley Marathon and one of only 20 runners in its 40 year existence to ever finish the race. Ultrarunning icons like Courtney Dauwalter and Maggie Guterl have proved this claim by being the top finishers in major races like the Moab 240 and Big Dog’s Backyard Ultra.
Women are also surpassing men in accolades. Team USA’s Tatyana McFadden recently became the most decorated American Track and Field athlete of all time in the 2024 Paris Olympics. McFadden now has 22 Paralympic medals including eight gold medals, beating out the previous most decorated athlete, Allyson Felix, with her 11 Olympic medals (including seven gold medals). Both women have more Olympic medals than any American male track and field athlete in history.
TrackGirlz are fast and strong. TrackGirlz are winners. They are unapologetic in directly challenging the people that say they can’t. TrackGirlz are bold.
Women are too frail.
In Amsterdam, 1928, women were allowed to run in the Olympics for the first time. In the 800m race, Germany’s Lina Radke set a world record of 2:16.9. Sportswriter John Tunis reported on the event: “Below us on the cinder path were 11 wretched women, 5 of whom dropped out before the finish, while 5 collapsed after reaching the tape.” Tunis was wrong. Only 9 women ran and all 9 finished. Racers sat down after finishing, but none collapsed. However, this narrative led to all events over 200m being banned for women until 1960.
Now, women race distances up to the marathon in the games and the world record has dropped over 20 seconds. Jarmila Kratochvilova set the record of 1:53.28 in 1983, one of the oldest track world records ever. Today, over 500 women have run the 800m in under two minutes—and that’s just one of many once-impossible time barriers that have been broken.
157 women have broken 4 minutes in the 1500m, 19 have broken 30 minutes in the 10k, and Beatrice Chebet became the first woman to break 14 minutes in the 5k with her world record time of 13:54 this past year. Faith Kipyegon currently holds the women’s world record in the mile with a blazing time of 4 minutes and 7 seconds, bringing her the closest a woman has ever been to breaking the 4 minute mark.
But speed is not the only skill that TrackGirlz have. The sport of track and field, especially jumping and throwing events, are all about strength. Thrower Natalya Lisovskaya of Russia holds the women’s world record in the shotput – an astonishing 22.63 meters (74ft, 3 inches), coming in right behind the men’s world record of 23.56 meters (77 ft, 3 inches) set by Ryan Crouser. While Lisovskaya’s 1987 record has stood the test of time, several young field athletes are following in her footsteps.
University of Oregon thrower Jaida Ross became the first collegiate woman to break 20 meters in the shotput in 2024 and is only the 7th woman in American history to do so. The same year, Ukrainian high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh also made history with her world record jump of 2.10 meters in July at the Diamond League meet in Paris.
TrackGirlz don’t let anyone dictate what they can and can’t do. They prove they are capable. TrackGirlz are resilient.
More Than Just a Sport
Here at TrackGirlz, we work to empower young girls to run, jump, and throw, because we know that this sport means more than fast times and gold medals. Through our programs, girls get introduced to role models that prove to them that they can achieve anything they set their mind to. It gives them a community that supports them and proof of their own strength and resilience in all facets of their life.
While International Women’s Day is only once a year, we are always celebrating women and girls, especially the TrackGirlz that are pushing the boundaries of what women can do both athletically and in life. We are building the next generation of leaders that will continue this legacy of excellence, boldness, and resilience.
Leave a Reply