What's on our 2025 calendars 🥳

38% of girls

- The number of girls who now say they dream of 'reaching the top' of sport — up from 29% just last year, according to a report from 'Women in Sport' (though still far less than 59% of boys). As more girls see female athletes excelling more of them imagine loving and competing in their favorite sports 💜

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

1. College volleyball is the next big thing 🏐

When Penn State defeated Louisville last week to win their 8th NCAA Volleyball national championship (and the first in a decade) 21,860 fans were in attendance.

More people have been watching women's college volleyball in the last two years than ever, and that's leading to more girls playing — it's now the second largest girls high school sport, behind track — and more fans getting excited about the sport.

A lot of the coverage has been driven by new TV deals. (See it, be a fan of it!) The Big Ten conference had 83 matches televised this year. ABC and NBC both televised matches on primetime TV for the first time. ESPN showed over 2,600 matches across its digital and TV platforms, and saw a 98% increase in viewership for the regionals, with an average of 400,000 people watching.

And now League One Volleyball will launch its inaugural pro season in January!

AMAZING: Penn State coach Katie Schumacher-Cawley also became the first woman to win a national volleyball title, while battling cancer

2. The epic nine-day Tour de Ski

(Photo: Courtesy of FIS)

What is the Tour de Ski?

If you've never heard of it, the Tour de Ski is a seven-stage cross-country ski race — this year from Dec. 28 to Jan. 5 — that combines a variety of styles and disciplines.

This year it's being held in Italy and includes a combo of freestyle and classic sprint and distance races, with mass starts, interval starts, and pursuits, before the last day's final climb stage. There are 67 women and 100 men racing, though last year's women's champ Frida Karlsson is out from injury.

The 2025 Tour

U.S. star Jessie Diggins, who became the first American to win an individual Olympic medal in cross-country, is trying to win her *third* Tour de Ski. She started off strong this week, winning the first two events — which included her first *ever* classic ski win after over 300 World Cup races. However, she fell behind on the third day (a 20km freestyle event) and her overall lead is now just 22 seconds.

WATCH: On FIS TV

READ: Diggins has talked about her eating disorder relapse and dealing with pressure

FUN FACT: An anonymous ski fan started a "Diggins Collapse Index" to rank the most dramatic XC ski finishes

3. What we're looking forward to in 2025....

If 2023 was the year that women's sports really started to get the investment they deserve and 2024 was the year they exploded, then we're ready for 2025 to be the best year yet. Which makes it hard to pick just a few things, but here are some events we've already circled:

The Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift (July 26-Aug. 3): With so many big names returning or coming out of retirement, it's going to be an epic cycling season but no race more so than the 4th edition of the week-long Tour.
More Women, More Miles: Speaking of cycling, we can't wait to see all the women tackling their first Unbound gravel race on June 1 as part of our More Women, More Miles initiative. Will the pro finish be as sprint-epic as it was this year?
Grand Slam Track & Athlos: Lots of new big track meets now, and we're curious to see what happens with the four-meet big name Grand Slam Track league (April 4-6, May 2-4, May 30-June 1, June 27-29) and we can't wait for the all-women's Athlos to return in the fall!
UTMB (Aug. 29): The last two years Courtney Dauwalter and then Katie Schide each broke the course record at this famous 100-mile mountain race. Will this be the year we see them head-to-head?
Women's Rugby World Cup (Aug. 22-Sept. 27): You didn't even know how much you cared about rugby until this summer. Now the World Cup — played with 15 players, not the 7 of the Olympics — heads to England and tickets are already selling out. And, yes, this is why Ilona Maher is playing in England right now to try and make the U.S. squad.
Women's Euros (July 2-27): It's the other massive soccer tournament that draws huge record-setting crowds.
The women's Ironman World Championship (Oct. 11): Back on the Big Island of Hawaii. Will we see another record-breaking day?
Unrivaled (January) & March Madness: The new 3 v. 3 basketball league starts in January and will air on TNT. And then it's straight into another big year for March Madness (culminating April 4 & 6), with Juju Watkins and Paige Bueckers highlighting the season.
PWHL Takeover Tour: In its second season, the hockey league will head to new cities (Seattle, St. Louis, Denver, Detroit) to fill-out NHL stadiums in a handful of special games

But there are so many other things we could add too — and so many questions: Will 2025 be the year we see more para-athlete funding? What will happen to college sports in the U.S. and the massive overhaul to the system? How does Crossfit recover from the death at this year's Crossfit Games? Does Simone Biles come back for one more Olympics?!

What are you most looking forward to?

Tip of the week

A few weeks ago we shared a study that showed under-fueling for even just two weeks caused a 7.8% decrease in performance in a 20-minute time trial. That's a big drop! 😳

So why do we keep thinking thinner is automatically faster?

Because that's what we keep being told by outdated coaches and influencers, despite all evidence to the contrary. In fact, we've been told we need to lose weight for so long, so many decades, it's hard to get out of that mindset.

And this time of year that messaging can get especially bad with all the slimdowns and diet fads and 'new year new you.' There's nothing wrong with wanting to eat well or having body composition goals, but the problem with so many of these diet challenges is that they're not aimed at active women. If you have big goals for 2025, you need to fuel those goals.

That's why we've launched a FREE five-day Fueled Challenge to help you finally ditch the diet mindset for good. It includes a series of daily emails and 10-minutes worth of exercises from nutrition and mental experts, and will get you ready to fuel your 2025 🌯

SIGN UP: The FREE Feisty Fueled Challenge starts Jan. 6

The highlight reel

😮 On the last day of the year, Beatrice Chebet just became the first woman to break 14:00 in a 5K.
⛷️ In her first World Cup back at the age of 40, Lindsey Vonn took a conservative 14th in the Super-G in St. Moritz — 1.18 seconds behind the winner Cornelia Huetter, who is now in second overall in the standings.
🏄‍♀️ With huge waves and swells across the Pacific, the legendary big wave surfing contest in Hawaii, the Eddie, was called and women were invited for just the second time ever. Ten women competed across the heats, with the male surfers. That included Bianca Valenti, who has long fought to get women included in the biggest big wave surfing contests.
Zara Lachlan, a UK college student, is attempting to be the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic 🚣 — and has made it halfway!
🏃‍♀️ 6x national collegiate champion Parker Valby won the Bowerman Award (the biggest award in college running) — uncommon for a distance runner — and you can watch her acceptance here.
A dad in China was banned from the race for letting his nine-year-old daughter run 🏃‍♀️ a marathon.
Lebanese soccer player, Celine Haidar, ⚽ is in a medically-induced coma after a bombing.
⚽ Netflix has purchased the broadcasting rights to the next two women's World Cups. Is this good or bad?
The top two prize money earners in triathlon 💰 for 2024 were women: Kat Matthews and Taylor Knibb.
Music copyright law is coming for artistic events like figure skating and gymnastics.
The next big genre in books? Formula 1 romance novels. 🏎️ 💕

Your Feisty recommendations

What to watch: The Fire Inside — based on the story of boxer Claressa Shields, finally in theaters

What to listen to: A Feisty special conversation across all our podcasts about getting beyond diet culture

What to read: "Losing Muriel Furrer — a teenage cycling tragedy and a family's search for answers"

What we loved: Can pro runner Allie Ostrander beat her weiner dog in a mile race? 🐶