Presented by:

46 women

— included in TIME's 100 Most Influential People in Sports — from Dawn Staley to Trinity Rodman to Clara Wu Tsai

A big week in trail running... 🏃‍♀️

This upcoming weekend is the Broken Arrow Skyrace in Tahoe. Next weekend is the historic Western States 100-mile race, starting in Tahoe and heading up and over the mountains. And in between is a trail running conference for everybody to mix, mingle, and run!

It's a big week in North American trail running 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️

🤝 JOIN US: In one week — June 23 @ 12:40 p.m. at the Olympic Village Event Center at Palisades-Tahoe — we'll be hosting a lunch for the women of trail running in collaboration with the Women's Trailrunning Fund and sponsored by Arc'teryx 💜 Come make some new running buddies or just get to know the other women out here with you! RSVP helpful but not required 

Broken Arrow

This weekend: Modeled after the highly technical and shorter (for ultra running) popular European races, Broken Arrow now has:

• a championship 23K with $30,000 to the race winner

• a 46K with a mountainous 10,000ft of elevation gain

• a youth NTN trail championship

• a brutal Ascent race that goes straight up 📈

• and a total record-breaking $150,000 prize purse

😮 MORE: A preview of the marquee elite and exciting 23K race

Western States 

Then next weekend: What started as a bet about who could cover the route from Tahoe to Auburn faster — horses or runners? — is now the oldest 100-mile race in the world. And one of the most coveted to enter.

While elite runners can earn a "golden ticket" through winning a qualifying race, us mere mortals have to enter a lottery. Every year that you don't get picked your number of lottery tickets double — as long as you keep doing qualifying events.

That means: There are now just 369 spots grandfathered in via permits for the race (only 257 of which are available via lottery). Yet, there were 11,328 runners who wanted one of those lottery spots! AND, they had a combined 93,000 lottery tickets 🤯

⛰️ WATCH: The race will go off on June 27 with last year's top two back to defend + a number of exciting debuts

🎧 LISTEN: Hear more from last year's winner Abby Hall on daring to own your ambition

(Abby Hall wins the 2025 Western States race.)

It's time for the Men's World Cup ⚽

It's now the boys' turn for a World Cup — and this year's event features a massive 48 teams. That's led to a number of first-ever countries qualifying, some exciting and surprising group stage matches (Cape Verde holding Spain to a tie!), and fans from some of the smaller countries taking over towns across the U.S, Canada, and Mexico.

🤔 JUST ONE QUICK REMINDER: The women's tournament is currently at 32 teams, which it was only expanded to from 24 teams in this last tournament (in 2023). It will then increase to the 48-team model for 2031, which is also expected to be held in the U.S. 

However, one of the reasons FIFA has given over the years for why the women's tournament stayed at a lower number of teams for so long was because expanding the number of teams would dilute the quality and there just weren't enough "good" teams to let more and smaller countries in...

🤔 JUST ONE MORE THING: When the gender of players is blurred, in a study published in 2023, viewers rate the goal-scoring of male and female players equally. Whereas when they're shown the same clips of games without the genders blurred, viewers rated the men's goals scored as of higher performance...

This year a record-breaking six women will be part of the referees for the men's tournament. And Curaçao (the smallest team) appear to have the only female team doctor.

😂 FUN FACT: Soccer visitors to the U.S. are going viral for their discovery of American culture and food

⚽ ALSO: The USWNT played a friendly game against Brazil ahead of next year's real 😉 World Cup, which will be held in Brazil — and there were eight (!) red cards and four coaches ejected 😳

Have you registered for FeistyFest yet?! 🎉

The three-day festival for active women 🏊‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️ 🏋️‍♀️ 🧘‍♀️ 🚴‍♀️ from Sept. 18-20 in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania will be a Don't Miss event of the fall.

💜 Move: Rides, runs, swims, strength training, yoga, pickleball. 

💜 Learn: Real experts with education and info centered on women’s bodies.

💜 Connect: Make new friends and fill your cup with old ones.

Listen to our special episode with keynote speaker Kate Veronneau on why these spaces for women are so magic-filled, check out some of the amazing speakers, and register at feisty.co 🫶

The highlight reel

• 🧗‍♀️ Two-time Olympic gold climbing medalist Janja Garnbret became the second woman to climb Bibliographie, a 5.15c grade climb in southeast France.
  
  
• 🏃🏾‍♀️ The University of Georgia repeated as the NCAA track & field national champions and Georgia's Dejanea Oakley set a collegiate record in the 400m (48.79 seconds). Adaejah Hodge, who won the 200m in a collegiate record, also broke the collegiate record in the 100m in the prelims (10.63 seconds), but was then beaten in the 100m finals by FSU's Shenese Walker. And Alabama's Sanu Jallow of Gambia broke Athing Mu's famous collegiate record in the 800m, running 1:56.85 — also a world-leading time.
  
  
• Gerda Steyn won the iconic 55-mile Comrades Marathon 🇿🇦 for the fifth time in a new course record of 5 hours, 44 minutes, and 53 seconds.
  
  
• After Jenny Rissveds and Savilia Blunk collided 🚵‍♀️ in the first lap of the mountain bike XCO World Cup race in Leogang, Rissveds went on to win and Blunk finsihed 5th. However, in the men's XCO race a similar incident saw a DQ.
  
  
• 🚲 Cécile Lejeune won the Belgian Waffle Ride Utah.
  
  
• 🏄‍♀️ Carissa Moore won her second World Surf League event in a row — pushing her up to #2 in the rankings during her first postpartum season.
  
  
• 🏊‍♀️ 🚴‍♀️ 🏃‍♀️ Lisa Tertsch won the World Triathlon European championship. And Paula Findlay won the half-Ironman North American championship (with Feisty's own Lydia Russell in second!).
  
  
• 🏌️‍♀️ Gina Kim and Yana Wilson teamed up to win their first LPGA Tour titles at the Dow Championship.
  
  
• The U.S. 🇺🇸 won the Curtis Cup 🏌️‍♀️ with a historic run from University of Texas junior Farah O'Keefe.
  
  
• 🎾 Serena Williams and Victoria Mboko are out of the doubles tournament at Queen's after Mboko suffered a fall and injured her knee, which will also keep her out of Wimbledon. Williams' return to tennis, after becoming a spokesperson for the telehealth company Ro and their GLP-1 weight loss drugs, is also bringing increased anti-doping scrutiny to GLP-1s, which have been on the World Anti-Doping Agency's monitoring list (meaning they're tracking the use and side effects) for the last two years.
  
  
• 🏈 The Women's National Football Championship will air this Sunday at 4 p.m. ET on ESPN2 with the Texas Elite Spartans attempting to defend their tackle football title against the San Diego Rebellion.
  
  
• WNBA All-Star voting has opened. 🏀
  
  
• And a new analysis found that women's sports events brought £54.7 million  ($73 million USD) to London's economy last year.
  
  

Your Feisty recommendations

🎧 What to listen to: "Female injury prevention finally gets its own research with Dr. Margo Mountjoy"

📚 What to read: "Stephanie Case’s bid to break a record in an Antarctic race no woman has previously entered"

📺 What to watch: On July 1, Catherine Breed will begin her attempt to swim the entire California coast — and you can watch along with her effort

🫶 What we loved: Jordyn Woods, fiance of Knicks' player Karl-Anthony Towns, was the MVP of the team's MNBA championship win

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

Live Feisty Media Corporation, 770 Central Spur Rd #109, Victoria, BC V9A0G7, Canada

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