Silver Ferns. Photo: photosport
Sports scientists from Australia, the US, Britain and New Zealand have formed a partnership focused on helping female athletes fulfill their potential by providing access to research and best-practice information, the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) said.
The Global Alliance for Female Athletes (GAFA) will give athletes, coaches and support staff access to "world-leading evidence, performance insights and best-practice information" for free, the ASC said.
The partnership comes at a time when anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries are on the rise in women's sports, with studies showing female athletes are two to six times more likely to sustain the injury than male athletes.
"For female athletes having access to best practice information that we can trust and is freely accessible and also translated into language that we can actually understand is going to be life changing for a lot of female athletes," Australian race walker Jemima Montag said.
"For the last many decades, unfortunately, we've only seen about 6 percent of sports science research focusing on female athletes. The rest has been done on male humans, male rodents, and then directly applied to female athletes.
"And not only is that dubious, but it's actually dangerous because of our anatomical and physiological differences."
Mackenzie Wiki celebrates her try. Papua New Guinea Orchids v Kiwi Ferns, Pacific Championships test match. Santos National Football Stadium, Papua New Guinea. Photo: NRL Photos / www.photosport.nz
Rachel Harris, Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) Female Performance Health Initiative Project Lead, said health literacy around female-specific conditions is poor.
"This gap in knowledge, coupled with widespread misinformation, means athletes often miss the early warning signs and go undiagnosed or are inadequately treated for conditions like endometriosis or dysmenorrhea," Harris said.
"Athletes are then forced to miss training days which reduces their chances of making competition or in some cases sees them leave the sport altogether. Our goal is to change this."
Athletics pay parity
Meanwhile, World Athletics has a three-year action plan to empower women across several areas such as coaching and officiating that the governing body says will position the sport as a global model for equity and inclusion.
New Zealand's Zoe Hobbs competing at the 2024 World Athletics Indoor Championships, Scotland. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
World Athletics announced the Gender Leadership Taskforce's strategic plan on Saturday, on the eve of International Women's Day on Saturday, while including some sobering global statistics.
While the World Athletics Council achieved gender parity with 50 percent representation in 2023, it has not been matched in leadership positions throughout the sport's membership.
And while 40 percent of the international technical officials in athletics at the 2024 Olympics were women, only 27 percent of World Athletics' 152 Gold level referees are female.
Only 11 percent of the coaches at the 2023 World Athletics Championships were women, and "given the gender parity witnessed on the field of play this is a disproportionately low figure, and a focus remains on increasing the number of female high-performance coaches at major athletics events," the body said.
Photo: Athletics NZ
While World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said he was "extremely proud" of the progress the federation and the Gender Leadership Taskforce had made since it was established in 2017, there was room for improvement.
"Athletics has gender parity in elite participation on the field of play, but we want this to be reflected off the field by empowering women and girls with equality of opportunity in leadership and decision-making roles across all facets of the sport," he said.
The taskforce has identified action areas that include growing the pipeline for women in decision-making positions throughout the sport; increasing gender equity across administrators, referees and coaches; and continuing to raise awareness and promote gender equity through various programmes and campaigns, among others.
"We are proud of the progress we have made so far, but we know challenges remain in achieving equitable gender representation among administrators, coaches and referees," said taskforce Chair Stephanie Hightower.
"It is clear we cannot create a one size fits all solution but by joining forces with leaders and organisations with expertise in this area we hope to change mindsets and make lasting change for women and girls in our sport."
- Reuters
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