A 10-year-old course record

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"The dream actually came true today, and I'm still living it."

— Jen Pawol became the first woman to umpire an MLB game, but it's been a long (and mostly sexist!) route to get there

(Photo: Leadville Race Series)

Three other big stories to know this week in women's sports

1. A new Leadville course record 🚲

Eight weeks after having wrist surgery, 2018 world champ Kate Courtney broke the 10-year-old course record at the Leadville 100 mountain bike race — covering the 105 miles at elevation in Colorado in 6:48:55 🚴‍♀️

Leadville is one of the oldest and most iconic long-distance mountain bike races. And the previous course record was held by five-time world champ and Courtney's former teammate, Annika Langvad. But over the weekend, two women (Courtney and 2nd place Melisa Rollins) went under seven hours and under Langvad's old record — even if it took Rollins eight tries to get here!

🏆 Life Time Grand Prix: Leadville was also the third event in the Life Time Grand Prix series. Third place in Leadville, Lauren Stephens, was later DQ'd by officials for taking aid outside of a designated aid station — and Cecily Decker currently leads the overall series halfway through the year.

🛠️ SIGN UP: Our popular gravel camp x bike mechanic school will be held in February & registration is now open!

2. Meet the 18-year-old surprise of women's tennis 🎾

When Victoria Mboko 🇨🇦 upset Naomi Osaka to win the Montreal Open last week, the news broke in the middle of the men's matches in Toronto and the crowd went crazy – confusing the male players on court 🤔

Mboko, who was born in the U.S. to parents from the Democratic Republic of Congo, moved to Canada when she was just two months old. She was a promising juniors player but struggled with injuries and came into this year determined to change her mindset.

It's worked. After a solid performance into the third round at the French Open, she won her first WTA title in Montreal:

She became the youngest player since Serena Williams to defeat four Grand Slam champions in a single tournament
And became the third Canadian to win the home tournament

The win came with a $752,275 prize — upping her career total earnings to $1.2 million — and skyrocketed her 61 spots in the rankings to #24. This time last year, she was ranked #351.

It also earned her a seeded spot into the U.S. Open, one of the four Grand Slams, that starts Aug. 26.

📺 WATCH: Ahead of the U.S. Open, the U.S. Tennis Association will be airing a new dating show on Youtube in an attempt to generate more interest (?) in tennis

3. A timeline of the sex toys being thrown onto WNBA courts. And why?

On July 29, the first sex toy was thrown onto a WNBA court during an Atlanta Dream v. Golden State Valkyries game. Since then, there have been at least five more incidents — including one where a dildo hit a 12-year-old girl in the stands.

Why are these sex toys being thrown on court? Good question.

Two men have since been arrested for two of the incidents and a cryptocurrency meme coin promoter has claimed responsibility (but says one of the men is not connected to their group). It's believed it's partially a promotion of their meme coin and partially that crypto betting markets are taking bets on the incidents (which encourages them to happen).

But it partially also has dude trying to convince you "we were just kidding, why can't you take a joke" vibes all over it 😑 And it's hard not to notice it's female players in a heavily minority, heavily LGBT league being targeted with "pranks" designed to sexually harass and humiliate.

📺 WATCH: Instead of giving those bros more air time, check out the new three-part series on Diana Taurisi airing on Amazon Prime

Tip of the week

Where did the idea that we need 10,000 steps per day come from? Probably from a 1965 marketing campaign based around a Japanese step meter.

What's the magic number really? Well, there's nothing magic about any of it, but the largest meta-analysis to date looked at 57 studies done over the years and found 7,000 steps is a good number. Which is roughly, depending on your stride length, about 3-3.5 miles. Compared to just 2,000 steps daily, 7,000 steps was linked to 47% lower risk of all-cause death, 25% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease, and up to 38% lower risk of dementia. It was also associated with reduced risk of type 2 diabetes, cancer mortality, and depression.

Walking more is great — so is running! and biking! and lifting weights! — but the bulk of health benefits comes in that initial 7,000 steps.

The highlight reel

She was the youngest member of the gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics team in Paris, and now she's the new all-around national champion: Hezly Rivera 🤸‍♀️
⛳ After 16 months as the LPGA world #1, Nelly Korda has been ousted in the rankings by Jeeno Thitikul 🇹🇭
🚲 Jana Kesenheimer won the Transcontinental Race — covering 4,000km across Europe — in 12 days, 3 hours, and 32 minutes.
🚲 And 11-year-old Molly Ehlers finished the Tour Divide — from Canada to the Mexico border — riding with her dad.
The U.S. topped Canada to win the world lacrosse sixes 🥍 title at the World Games in China.
🌍 Over 4,000 athletes are currently in Chengdu, China for The World Games, held every four years and covering a wide range of sports that are not currently in the Olympics — like flag football (which is coming to the L.A. Olympics!), ultimate frisbee, parkour, waterskiing, and tug-of-war. Highlights so far include: Taiwan 🇹🇼 (competing as Chinese Taipei) won their 6th consecutive tug-of-war gold, Julia Małgorzata Kozerska 🇵🇱 set a world record in freediving — diving down 222.5 meters, and #1 seed Watanabe Satomi 🇯🇵 became the first Japanese player to win a squash World Games title.
🇳🇬 Nigeria won its 5th straight AfroBasket title 🏀
🥎 A Pennsylvania team won the Little League Softball World Series title over the weekend.
Both the NWSL and the WNBA hosted rivalry weekends of games.
Lucy Charles-Barclay, the 2023 Ironman world champion, won her first T100 race in her hometown of London. (Though her countrywoman duo delivered the post-race recap for the ages 😂)
Joyline Chepngeno 🇰🇪 repeated her victory from last year at the famous Sierre-Zinal mountain race 🏔️ that covers 31km with 2,200m of elevation. Behind the Kenyan 1-2, Katie Schide took third fresh off her Hardrock 100 record — considered an especially impressive feat in a highly technical and fast race for someone better suited to 10+ hour events.
🏃‍♀️ Gracie Morris won the Sir Walter Miler and, according to Fast Women, the top nine women set a record for the most U.S. women under 4:30 in one race.
Elizabeth Laseter won the Beer Mile World Classic 🍺 in a championship record of 5:56.
Nikki Hiltz opened up about having top surgery last year after the Olympics.
Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles announced a young athlete mentorship program, called the SHERO Collective. 🤝
🏐 Major League Volleyball and the Pro Volleyball Federation announced a merger with their new combined league starting play in January.
A medalist from the 2012 Swimming World Championships is the first woman to sign on with The Enhanced Games — a sports spectacle that will allow doping and performance-enhancing drugs in an attempt to break existing world records.

Your Feisty recommendations

📺 What to watch: The last episode of the Amazon Prime docuseries on Faith Kipyegon's 4-minute-mile attempt

🎧 What to listen to: We covered all the details and history (and problems) of track & field bringing back sex testing on last week's The Feist podcast episode

📚 What to read: Alexandera Houchin's personal and emotional self-reflection on her Tour Divide experience

😂 What made us laugh: What does your horoscope say about which sport is your sport...

💜 What we loved: This amazing finish at the all-women's YWCA triathlon in Minneapolis