Female Athletes Who Have Paved the Way for Women's Athletics

Maaike Niekerk

A one-word summary of the history of women in sports, both within the United States as well as worldwide, would be this: short. Not only have women been included in sports for less time than men, but when they finally were allowed to compete, they were not treated or paid equally for their attendance in global competition. Gender imbalance has been prominent in most global sporting events throughout history; examples include the Olympics (where female participation remained under 10% for the first 30 years of the competition’s existence) and the World Cup (which was not held for women until 1991, over 60 years after the first men’s World Cup). I invite you to sit back, relax, and educate yourself with some anecdotes of female athletes who have shown incredible courage and paved the way for women’s athletics as we know it today.


Roberta Gibb (The First Woman to Compete in the Boston Marathon) and Katherine Switzer (The First Woman to be Ambushed While Competing in the Boston Marathon)

Though the Boston Marathon has been held annually since 1897 (with its only cancellation being in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic), women only began to be included in the race in 1972, almost a full century after the race’s inception. However, this rule against women competing in the marathon did not stop some female athletes from running anyways. Examples of this include Roberta Gibb and Katherine Switzer, two women who secretly entered the race before they were officially allowed to do so. While Gibb hid near the start line and joined in the race immediately after the gun went off, Switzer was actually listed as an official competitor, and simply didn’t clarify her gender on the application.

Early into Switzer’s race in 1967, race manager Jock Semple attempted to tackle her to the ground in order to prevent her from finishing. However, with the help of her coach and boyfriend, Switzer managed to run past him and continue on to complete the race in four hours and twenty minutes. Switzer’s accomplishment was huge in that it proved how women were capable of running 26.2 miles; it sounds ridiculous to argue against that statement now, but at the time, women were not allowed to compete in the marathon because they were supposedly “too fragile” to endure the whole distance. Katherine Switzer and Jock Semple became close friends towards the end of Semple’s life, as he became a big supporter of female runners when they were finally allowed to compete.

Let the story of Katherine Switzer serve as a reminder to female runners everywhere to bring your boxing gloves (or Olympic hammer thrower boyfriend) with you on your next long run in case an old white man tries to derail your progress.

Megan Rapinoe - Fighting for Equal Pay Because Women in the U.S. Are Way Better at Soccer Than Men

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team (USWNT) is the most internationally successful women’s soccer team to date, having won a total of four of the eight Women’s World Cup Championships that have been held. The American Men’s National Soccer Team has only ever gotten as far as the quarterfinal round of the World Cup (once), and actually only qualified for 10 of the 21 tournaments ever held (one of which they qualified for automatically as hosts). Take a wild guess at who gets higher pay.

Women’s soccer players around the world have been fighting for equal pay since they were formally allowed to compete. One of the main voices in this battle has been Megan Rapinoe, a starting forward for the USWNT. Recently, the USWNT reached a settlement with the U.S. Soccer Federation, which agreed to pay the women 24 million dollars and compensate male and female athletes equally in future global tournaments and competitions. While this is a huge win, it doesn’t quite take away how the USWNT has been treated in the past, and how long the battle for equal pay took to come to a conclusion.

Rapinoe has voiced her opinions multiple times on how a complete shift is needed in order to achieve true equality. In a 2020 interview with NPR, Rapinoe commented that men are generally paid for “the potential that they show, not necessarily what they've done”, rather than being paid for “what they’ve actually done”, as women are. The public and the U.S. Soccer Federation seem to hold more confidence that their men’s team will perform well and pull in larger crowds, despite the increasing popularity of women’s soccer and decreasing success rates of the men’s soccer team.

While it is a huge step forward that men and women will now be paid the same, women’s soccer games and tournaments are largely under-attended and professional women’s soccer is generally not granted as much publicity or air time on live television when compared to men’s soccer. However, popularity in women’s soccer is increasing drastically (especially due to the USWNT’s success in recent World Cups). If you’re new to soccer, try turning on a women’s game once in a while- it helps to support female athletes, and the USWNT doesn’t disappoint.

Lia Thomas - Just Let the Girl Swim, For Goodness Sakes

On March 17th, 2022, Lia Thomas became the first transgender woman in history to win a D1 swimming championship with her win in the 500-yard freestyle.

The world’s reaction was extreme, but we can’t say we didn’t see it coming.

Debates about transgender athletes causing unfairness in the sports world have been carrying on ever since these athletes have been allowed to compete. A commonly heard story is that of Caster Semenya, the intersex track star who has been taken out of multiple competitions for her supposed “unfair advantage”. The NCAA, on the other hand, allowed Thomas (a swimmer for UPenn) to compete in the Division 1 finals, leaving some of her competitors outraged. D1 swimmer for Virginia Tech Reka Gyorgy wrote an angry letter to the NCAA after being left out of the national final race, stating that “every event that transgender athletes competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet”.

Thomas’s strength in blocking out hate like this in order to focus in on her racing is unmatched. Some of Thomas’s own teammates were among those protesting her participation in competition, while others remain supportive. Thomas stated in an interview with USA Today that she tries to “block out everything else” when swimming. While the hate is overwhelming, support is also emerging for Thomas, as over 300 current or former collegiate and elite swimmers signed an open letter of support arguing that Thomas should always be allowed to compete as a woman. One of Thomas’s closest competitors in the NCAA Division 1 finals, former Olympic silver medalist Erica Sullivan, was incredibly kind in her support for her competition.

“Many of those who oppose transgender athletes like Lia being able to participate in sports claim to be ‘protecting women's sports,’” Sullivan wrote in an opinion piece for Newsweek. “As a woman in sports, I can tell you that I know what the real threats to women's sports are: sexual abuse and harassment, unequal pay and resources, and a lack of women in leadership. Transgender girls and women are nowhere on this list.”

Megan Rapinoe, Professional Athlete for the USWNT