New York Marathon weekend & historic sailing races 🤩

This week's issue of the best in women's sports is presented by AminoCo. Get 30% off our favorite science-backed amino acid supplements with the code THEFEIST at aminoco.com.

"To be able to have a voice across basketball, not NBA, not WNBA, just hoops, it represents how the game should be."

- Former WNBA player Chiney Ogwumike, after being signed to a four-year contract with ESPN — making her the first female broadcaster to work full-time across both the "NBA Countdown" and "WNBA Countdown" shows

Three things to know this week in women's sports

1. 50,000 runners take on the New York Marathon this Sunday 🏃‍♀️

New York Marathon weekend kicks off with the USATF 5K Championship in Central Park on Saturday morning — which will feature defending champ Annie Rodenfels.

And then it's on to the big event.

The women's pro race

Last year, Hellen Obiri became the first woman in 34 years to win the New York and Boston marathons in the same year. She's back this year, now after a bronze medal in Paris.

But she'll have to beat Sharon Lokedi, who took fourth in Paris and won New York two years ago, and Edna Kiplagat, who won in New York back in 2010! Along with four-time Olympic medalist Vivian Cheruiyot, Tirunesh Dibaba making her return to the marathon after a six-year gap, and the fastest PR in the field, Sheila Chepkirui.

🇺🇸 Plus, the Americans: The top American in Paris, Dakotah Lindwurm, Boston Marathon champ Des Linden, 1500m Olympic medalist Jenny Simpson, and the 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials champion Aliphine Tuliamuk.

Full start list here.

The women's wheelchair race

Is even more stacked! 😲

U.S. legends Tatyana McFadden and Susannah Scaroni have both held the course record here. McFadden had it for seven years and won this race five times (along with her 20 Paralympic medals). But in 2022, Scaroni took the course record and her first win.

They'll have to hold off Manuela Schär, who's also won the New York Marathon three times and has eight Paralympic medals.

WATCH: Coverage starts at 8 a.m. ET on Sunday on ESPN2 or the ESPN app or on the New York Marathon app

<<🤔 Don't forget Daylights Savings is Sunday!>>

Fun facts:

- 51,453 runners finished the 2023 New York Marathon — 22,843 of whom were women

- The average finish time overall was 4:39:47 — and for the female finishers it was 4:56:12

- And in the 20-24 and 25-29 age-groups, women outnumbered men!

(Photo: NYRR)

2. WNBA players opt out of collective bargaining agreement 🏀

Ahead of the Nov. 1 deadline, the WNBA Players Association announced it's opting out of its current collective bargaining agreement — giving the league and the players a year to now negotiate a new contract.

Why?

The current agreement would have run until 2027 if the players hadn't opted out. But it was negotiated in 2020 and players believe (and many experts, who they sought advice from, agree) that with the WNBA's booming numbers and revenue there are new opportunities to be had.

Since the last agreement was negotiated, team valuations have since increased 20x, the league itself has raised $75 million, and a new $2.2 billion media deal was reached.

One of the biggest issues: The salary cap and percentage of revenues or even potential ownership stake going to players. Both the NBA & WNBA feature revenue sharing arrangements in their contracts, but NBA players receive 51% of all revenue, while WNBA players receive 50% of incremental revenue — ie. revenue that exceeds certain league-defined targets and those targets only grow by 20% each year. In reality, it works out to just under 10% of the WNBA's $200 million revenues go to player salaries.

Players think it's time for this to change!

🏀🏀🏀 The 3 v. 3 Unrivaled league also unveiled their logos and team names last week

3. For the first time, women get an America's Cup ⛵

While women have competed on teams in the famous America's Cup over the years (even as early as 1886 as a timer), this is the first time in the event's 173-year history that female sailors got their own race.

Racing went from Oct. 5-13 at the Puig Women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona. It started with 12 teams in a qualification series before progressing to semis and a final match race. For this inaugural race, the woman raced AC40 foils, which are designed to have more pieces automated and be run with four-member teams.

In the end, Italy's Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli beat out the British team for the historic title!

WATCH: Highlights of the final race

Tip of the week

Sure, it's best if you can do some exercise most days — but if you can't always fit it in, don't sweat! Even if you're only able to get some workouts in a couple days a week, as long as you hit the recommended 150 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise each week you'll still lower your risk for over 200 different diseases.

That's according to an analysis of activity patterns for nearly 90,000 participants, which found no differences in incidents of diabetes, hypertension, or obesity for "weekend warriors."

READ: Associations of 'Weekend Warrior' Physical Activity With Incident Disease and Cardiovascular Health

The highlight reel

Federica Brignone, 34, 🇮🇹 became the oldest woman to win an Alpine skiing World Cup race when she took the giant slalom ⛷️ in the season opener this weekend.
🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️The concept of Big's Backyard Ultra is simple: Complete a 4.167-mile loop (in the backyard) every hour on the hour until you can't go on any longer. Execution is a lot harder. In this year's global competition (with teams all over the world competing at the same time) Megan Eckert 🇺🇸 broke the women's record, previously set by Courtney Dauwalter — finishing 87 loops (or 362.5 miles in 87 hours).
🏃‍♀️ At the Javelina Jundred 100-mile race out in the Arizona desert (and a Golden ticket qualifier for Western States), Riley Brady won the women's race and finished seventh overall in second-fastest time in course history (14:19:01).
🏃🏿‍♀️ Agnes Ngetich 🇰🇪 ran a 1:03:04 half-marathon in Valencia — the second fastest half-marathon ever.
The 2025 Tour de France Femmes route was revealed: Nine days, 723 miles, finishing with two mountaintop stages and a victor crowned on the Châtel Les Portes du Soleil 🚴‍♀️ 🚴‍♀️ 🚴‍♀️
Kate McCarthy 🇳🇿 won the Cycling Esports World Championships in a final sprint.
🏊‍♀️ Regan Smith broke her second backstroke world record for the year (54.41 seconds for 100m in a short-course pool) and Kate Douglass broke the 200m breaststroke world record (2:14.16).
⚽ While the NWSL playoffs start in less than two weeks, Kansas City won the NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup this past weekend—an inaugural cross-club competition with Mexico that may have fallen a little flat.
The NWSL's Angel City FC paid a fine for exceeding the salary cap earlier this year, but is now disputing the charge, arguing that those payments were childcare subsidies and shouldn't count against salaries.
🏄‍♀️ When the World Surf League announced its 2025 schedule, that included a stop at the world's largest wave pool in Abu Dhabi. However, laws in the UAE prohibited homosexuality as a crime—making the location unsafe for the sole LGBT surfer on the tour.

Your Feisty recommendations

What to watch: BONNIE</> — a short documentary about starting a women's cycling brand

What to read: "We Need to Stop Giving Women Tips For Being 'Safe'" — with the murder of Alyssa Lokits, when she was out running on a local trail, it's a good time to revisit this Feisty piece on women's safety while working out

What we love: Jordan Chiles is now the face of Lucky Charms

Congrats 💜: To our Feisty Menopause podcast, Hit Play Not Pause, on their 200th episode tomorrow!