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"Immigrant City Football Club"

—   T-shirts worn by the Angel City team during their game this past weekend, in the wake of ICE raids throughout the city of L.A. However, reports also surfaced of fans having signs taken away that were deemed "too political." With protests and warrant-less detentions rocking the U.S., the WNBA and NWSL released a joint statement.

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

1. New names — and growing pains — at the Hyrox World Championships 💪

At the Hyrox World Championships in Chicago this weekend, a new champion was crowned. Defeating three-time world champ, Lauren Weeks 🇺🇸, and season-long podium favorite, Joanna Wietrzyk 🇦🇺, Germany's Linda Meier took the lead halfway through the eight-event race and didn't look back.

What is Hyrox?

If you haven't heard of the fast-growing competition, Hyrox combines eight functional strength challenges with 1km runs in a race around a stadium. After taking Europe by storm, the popularity and availability of the events is now growing in N. America...

But, it's not without growing pains. As more and more athletes compete in the amateur and pairs categories, there were complaints about certain lanes on the sled push being slower (and later being removed) and volunteer judges varying in their officiating and directions.

🤝 PAIRS: Pros (and amateurs) can also compete in a mixed doubles category — where a male & female athlete split the workload — or in the female doubles. Although Crossfit world champ Tia-Clair Toomey pulled out of her highly anticipated world champs debut in the pro doubles category, Americans Lauren Weeks and Lauren Griffith took gold and stopped the clock in just under 55 minutes!

👑 ADAPTIVE: Paralympian Lauren Steadman 🇬🇧 won the first-ever adaptive world title with impressive split times!

2. Is this the best swim meet performance in history? 👑

(Summer McIntosh - Photo: Jussi Grznar / Red Bull Content Pool)

A short summary of 18-year-old Summer McIntosh's week last week:

• 🏊‍♀️ 400 free: 3:54.18 (world record)

• 🏊‍♀️ 200 IM: 2:05.70 (world record)

• 🏊‍♀️ 400 IM: 4:23.65 (world record)

• 🏊‍♀️ 800 free: 8:05.07 (#2 all-time)

• 🏊‍♀️ 200 fly: 2:02.26 (#2 all-time)

At the Canada Swim Trials — where athletes were qualifying for the World Championship team later this summer — Summer McIntosh broke three world records in five days. The last person to break three individual world records in one meet was Michael Phelps during the Beijing Olympics. But it wasn't just her world records, it was also the swims where she didn't quite break the world record — but was still #2 all-time!

🥇 And then she gave her medals away to local kids in the stands.

MEANWHILE IN THE U.S. - At U.S. Nationals the same week, Gretchen Walsh set a pair of new American records. And Katie Ledecky swam the 4th fastest time in history in the 800m free. Could we see a McIntosh v. Ledecky showdown?

Stay tuned for the World Championships to be held in Singapore starting July 11...

3. New report shows women's sports fans want to buy from women's sports brands

With global women's sports revenue forecasted to hit $2.35 billion for 2025, brands and sponsors want in on this booming market. That's why Parity conducted a survey of fans and consumers to find out what they're looking for in women's sports partners.

The top line: Trust in female athletes is higher than in influencers or male athletes, and fans of women's sports want to support brands that support female athletes

• 1 in 5 sports fans have already made a purchase because of a women's sports sponsorship

• 75% of women's sports fans trust that female athletes believe in the products they're endorsing

• Even 58% of those who say they never watch women's sports said they trust women athletes

And these fans want their dollars to mean something. What makes them most likely to buy? Cause-driven campaigns and products designed in partnership with female athletes

LEARN MORE: Read the full report from Parity

🫣 SNEAK PEEK: This momentum is also part of why we're launching a brand new women's sports podcast — also called The Feist 🙌 — to tell the stories of the female athletes that aren't being told. With a feisty fun take! 

More to come next week...

But, if you're in Victoria, Canada join us this Friday at 5:30 p.m. for a FREE live launch event and a panel on the future of women's sports. Hear from elite athletes and people behind-the-scenes, enjoy some drinks and prizes, and be a part of the brand new launch 🎉  at KWENCH Co-working & Culture Club in downtown Victoria.

Tip of the week

Did you know that women experience concussions differently than men. Research has shown that women often have more symptoms and longer recovery times.

Why? That's still up for debate, but some possible explanations include:

• Women tend to have narrower necks, less neck strength, and less head mass making them susceptible to greater head acceleration for a given force.

• Monthly hormonal fluctuations may impact the brain's healing process leading to longer recovery for women.

• And the impacts of how women's health and female athletes are treated can't be ignored. Some analysis has found that when female athletes receive medical attention after the initial head trauma as quickly as male athletes then many of the discrepancies in outcomes disappear.

SIGN UP: For the Feisty Brain Power course for more on brain health

The highlight reel

• 🚲 The Tour Divide (a self-supported race from Banff in Canada to the U.S.-Mexico border) has started — and along with some record-breaking women, 11-year-old Molly is taking it on. You can watch their dots on a map to see where the riders are at 👀
  
  

• 🚲 As the UCI's Tour de Suisse concluded, it was three of the best women in the world fighting for the podium: Marlen Reusser, Demi Vollering, and Kasia Niewiadoma. How did four days pack in so much action? 
  
  

• 🚲 The UCI also announced the 2026 Women's World Tour schedule. And a new rule on the minimum width for handlebars that disproportionately affects women 🤔
  
  

• Is the GOAT of trail running, Courtney Dauwalter, looking to do a gravel race next...
  
  

• 🏃‍♀️ The University of Georgia won the NCAA track & field national championship title — making coach Caryl Smith-Gilbert the first female coach to win national titles at two different schools. In the meet, Alabama's Doris Lemngole beat her own collegiate record in the steeplechase (and ran a world leading time for all athletes, pro or collegiate). And Michigan's Savannah Sutherland took down Sydney McLaughlin's 400m hurdles collegiate record (and set a Canadian record).
  
  

• ⛰️ Anna Gibson won the U.S. Mountain Running Championships — a week after racing the famous Zegama trail race in Spain. (She'll also be taking on Broken Arrow, the Golden Trail World Series race in California this upcoming weekend!)
  
  

• Jackie Hering bounced back from a mechanical in Ironman Hamburg to become the first American woman to win Ironman Cairns in Australia just a few weeks later.
  
  

• 🏃‍♀️ 59-year-old Michelle Rohl set a 10,000m world record for the 55-59 age group (36:38.32).
  
  

• Grand Slam Track abruptly canceled the last event of its inaugural season, meant to be held in L.A.
  
  

• ⛳ Carlota Ciganda 🇪🇸 won her first LPGA event in over eight years, taking the victory on the final two holes of the Meijer LPGA Classic.
  
  

• 🎾 Tatjana Maria 🇩🇪 became the first women's champion at the Queen's Club in London in 52 years. It took that long for a women's pro tour event to come back to the club...
  
  

• The WTA also announced it will protect players' rankings if they're undergoing fertility treatments. 
  
  

• 🏉 The championship game for the first Women's Elite Rugby Legacy Cup is now set: New York Exiles will face off against the Denver Onyx on June 29.
  
  

• And a group of female athletes has appealed the NCAA settlement, arguing it unfairly favors male athletes and violates Title IX law.
  
  

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Your Feisty recommendations

📺 What to watch: About Damn Time — the story of the trailblazing boatwomen of the Grand Canyon

📚 What to read: "The Portland Bar That Screens Only Women's Sports" from the New Yorker

🎧 What to listen to: Even if you're not going through IVF and never plan to, you'll want to listen to this episode with six-time mountain bike world champion Annika Langvad on her fertility ups and downs as a pro athlete

🙌 What we love: The She Sends Foundation's inaugural grant program to support people and groups breaking down barriers for girls on bikes

💜 RIP: Nina Kuscisk, the first official women's winner of the Boston Marathon

The Feist is written by Kelly O'Mara. Ads by Ella Hnatyshyn

Live Feisty Media Corporation, 2031 Store St #30, Victoria, British Columbia V8T 5L9, Canada

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