CrossFit Games, record week for soccer, and who will win the Tour de France? 🤩

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623,088

— The record-breaking attendance numbers for the women's Euro Championship tournament, with another 16 million watching in the UK as defending champs England won over Spain in a penalty shootout. But just a reminder: The Football Association in England banned women from playing for 50 years; just imagine what could have been without trying to make up for all those decades...

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

1. A big week in cycling: Tour de France Femmes, record-breaking at Red Bull, and a world champ makes her return at Leadville 🚲

It's been a wild start to the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 💨 We've had the indefatigable Marianne Vos winning a stage again (!), 41-year-old Mavi Garcia launching an attack that stuck for a stage win on day two, and Kim Le Court taking Mauritius' first yellow jersey *ever* (and after her husband emailed teams to get her a contract).

AND (AND!) that's not even getting into the overall race for the general classification: Elisa Longo Borghini and Marlen Reusser have already pulled out sick, and race favorite Demi Vollering went down in a hard crash yesterday (but started this morning's stage).

Whew. 😮‍💨

Don't forget that the biggest climbing stages start this Thursday — and that's when we should keep an eye on last year's champ Kasia Niewiadoma and Olympic mountain bike gold medalist Pauline Ferrand-Prevot (both of whom are sitting nicely just about 20 seconds back from the overall lead after four days).

WATCH: In the U.S., on NBC or Peacock; in Canada, on FloSports

LISTEN: The Wheel Talk podcast is reporting from the ground in France with more details than you could possibly want!

LOVE: And check out the behind-the-scenes Crew Diaries (and the amazing shots) from photographer Dominique Powers 📷

CELEBRATE: With 40% off our 'it's not a moment, it's a movement' shirts — because it *is* a movement

🚵‍♀️ PLUS, A FIRST: Louise Ferguson also became the first woman to complete a finals run at the brutal Red Bull Hardline course in Wales — watch the whole thing

💜 AND, A LESSON: And mountain bike world champ Kate Courtney made her return from injury at the three-day Leadville stage race — where she lost to Melisa Rollins by 24 seconds, but practiced curiosity

2. It's time to crown the Fittest Women on Earth 🏋️‍♀️

(Photo: CrossFit)

It's hard to imagine 7x CrossFit Games champion Tia-Clair Toomey *not* winning an 8th CrossFit Games title this weekend — especially with so many athletes missing from this year's Games. But, why is that?

What's happening with CrossFit

Last year, during the first event of the CrossFit Games, elite athlete Lazar Ðukić drowned. With just 30 athletes competing in the swim event and reports of spectators on shore trying to wave down the lifeguards after realizing something was wrong, it was unclear how something like this could have happened. And the tragedy shook the CrossFit community. Many athletes, including defending champion Laura Horvath, pulled out of the rest of the competition.

This year, a number of high-profile CrossFit athletes have stepped away from the sport. New alternative events, like Hyrox and the World Fitness Project, are also giving them other options to build their careers as CrossFit deals with turmoil and low registration numbers.

The CrossFit Games

The Games are the pinnacle of CrossFit. Started in 2007, the goal was to create an ultimate test of "fitness" through a combination of different kinds of events: gymnastics-type challenge, endurance events, and different styles of weightlifting and strength. Part of the challenge? You don't know what all of the events are going to be!

Today, there's a process to qualify for the Games and thousands of athletes compete in the CrossFit Open (which is a step in qualification). The 30 best men and 30 best women in the world will then meet up this weekend in Albany, New York.

💪 The contenders: The only other woman, besides Tia-Clair Toomey, to win a CrossFit Games "fittest on Earth" title in the last eight years was Laura Horvath in 2023. But Horvath pulled out of last year's competition after Dukic's death and opted not to compete this year. This makes it hard to imagine Toomey won't win a record 8th title (despite teasing her retirement earlier this season) — but it's one of the most wide-open fields in years, with both newbies and consistent podium contenders like Arielle Loewen.

🏋️‍♀️ The events: Athletes will compete in TEN events over three days — only five of which have been announced so far — starting with an endurance run-row-run this Friday evening.

📺 WATCH: On Youtube starting this Friday through the weekend

🎧 LISTEN: On this upcoming Thursday's podcast episode of The Feist, we talk with CrossFit Games podium finisher Arielle Loewen — you're going to want to tune in!

3. Mark your calendar: Katie v. Summer on Aug. 2 🏊‍♀️

The Swimming World Championships are starting off swimmingly for at least one athlete: Summer McIntosh.

The 18-year-old Canadian is on a quest to win a record FIVE individual world titles — which would make her the only swimmer besides Michael Phelps to do so. And so far she's got two: 🥇 400m free & 🥇 200m IM.

She's coming off one of the most impressive meet performances in history at the Canadian Trials earlier this summer, where she broke THREE world records. BUT. She'll have to beat Katie Ledecky in the 800m free on Aug. 2 — an event where Ledecky holds nearly all of the top 20 times ever and is going for her own record 7th straight world title.

So far the U.S. team has looked a little 🤢 — battling a stomach bug that is sweeping through the squad — but hopefully Ledecky can bounce back for an epic duel in the pool.

Saturday, Aug. 2

LIVE on Peacock at 7 a.m. ET with highlights on NBC at 2 p.m. ET

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS:

12-year-old Chinese phenom Yu Zidi finished 4th in the 200 IM and is raising questions about how young is too young
Australia topped the U.S. in a battle in the 4x100m relay
And Greece beat Hungary for the gold medal in water polo

Tip of the week

Do you know what External Iliac Artery Endofibrosis is?

Also known as 'cyclist's iliac syndrome,' it's when the external iliac artery — the vessel delivering blood to your working leg muscles — becomes narrowed or kinked, restricting blood flow to the affected leg, which becomes more pronounced with exertion.

🚴‍♀️ Cyclists are extremely vulnerable because of: Extreme hip flexion during riding, high cardiac output stressing blood vessels, and repetitive motion and pressure from surrounding muscle tissue. Over time, this causes the artery wall to thicken (endofibrosis) and restrict blood flow.

Symptoms include:

Leg pain
Numbness
Power loss
Burning sensation

EIAE is often misdiagnosed as overtraining or nerve issues, but can be confirmed with imaging like ultrasound or near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). For amateurs, it can often be managed with a change in bike position and modified training, but at the elite level surgery is going to be required. And, no, it's not your imagination — a lot of pros have had surgery in recent years.

If you're experiencing these problems, talk to your doctor!

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The highlight reel

🏃‍♀️The U.S. Track & Field National Championships (para and non-para) are this weekend — determining who will compete at the World Championships later this summer. (Full schedule here.) This includes some interesting races, like: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone opting for the 400m over her record-holding 400m hurdles, Nikki Hiltz going for a three-peat in the 1500m, Shelby Houlihan trying to make her first Worlds team back after her doping ban, the U.S. women's 100m field is very very deep, and attempting to understand who has the Worlds "standard" in the 10,000m is very very confusing. Watch over the weekend on Peacock & NBC 📺
We've also gotten more insight now into what happened with an investor pulling out of Grand Slam Track. 🏃‍♀️
🏆 Clare Elms broke her own mile world record for the 60-year-old age group — running a 5:18.97. And 70-year-old Anna Garnier set a world record for her age division with a stunning 6:33.46.
🎾 Leylah Fernandez won the DC Open, and became the first Canadian to win a WTA title on U.S. soil. And Venus Williams made her pro tennis return — becoming, at 45 years old, the oldest woman to win a Tour singles match since Martina Navratilova.
🪓 For the first time in history, 45 of the 100 competitors at the Lumberjack World Championships were women. Though there are still some events women have not yet entered, they competed in events like the single-hand crosscut sawing and the standing block chop. And 24-year-old Livi Pappadopoulos become a 7x champ in log rolling. (In case you were wondering: This is how she trains.)
🥎 The top-seeded Talons swept the Bandits in two games to win the inaugural AUSL championship title.
The Women's Football Alliance tackle championship match 🏈 will air on ESPN2 this Saturday — with the St. Louis Slam playing the DC Divas. Last year, St. Louis beat the 5x champs the Boston Renegade for the title, but Boston unfortunately announced they were suspending operations earlier this season.
💜 Former Ironman world champion and current world record holder for the Ironman distance, Anne Haug, announced her retirement this week. As did 2x cycling world champion Lizzie Deignan.
Nigeria 🇳🇬 came back from a 2-0 deficit to beat Morocco for the Women's Africa Cup of Nations soccer title. Brazil 🇧🇷 plays Uruguay 🇺🇾 today in the Copa América Femenina semi-finals. And the USWNT announced a set of friendlies in October, one of which will be played at the stadium in Kansas City that was built specifically for the women's NWSL team.
A Caitlin Clark pro rookie card just became the most valuable women's sports card ever.
In a widely publicized sexual assault trial in Canada that charged five hockey players with assault of a woman in a hotel room during a junior nationals' team celebration in 2018, the defendants were found not guilty this week. The eight-week trial also exposed a history of settlements with victims from Hockey Canada, and was viewed as a broader debate over the limits of hockey sports culture — leaving many now discouraged.
And U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee last week banned transgender women from competing in all sports — quietly complying with a political order from President Trump and taking away the decision from each sport's governing body (where it had traditionally been decided). Because many sports' governing bodies also oversee Masters and amateur competitions, it is not yet clear if this extends to all of those recreational athletes. Because the International Olympic Committee has also traditionally made policies independent of each country's political administration, it's not yet clear how this will sit within broader global sports rules.

Your Feisty recommendations

📺 What to watch: The Finisher: Jasmin Paris and the Barkley Marathons — if you didn't watch it before or want to relive the historic race

🎧 What to listen to: Need to catch up on Tour de France Femmes knowledge, so you can jump in to watch the big final stages? Listen to our Feist podcast episode from last week

📚 What to read: In honor of the Lionesses' Euros win, The Lost Lionesses: The incredible story of England's forgotten trailblazers

💜 What we love to see: The majority of people on this 100-mile start line were women