Athletic Women Blog

When last we saw bodybuilder Kathy Bertram she was snapping a baseball bat. In today's bit of fun we find her doing dishes, that is, in her own eccentric strongwoman way:

National Girls and Women in Sports Day makes its annual visit today. I marked the occasion last year with an op-ed piece penned by WNBA President Donna Orender.

But this year, thanks to the crew at Women Talk Sports, it is a slideshow of photos from the past year in women's sports, images exciting and affecting, loud and quiet—moments captured in the lives of girls and women laced with the joys and lessons that come with playing sports:

The question again on everyone's mind after the seemingly invincible 145-pound champion's TKO of a game but overmatched Marloes Coenen Saturday night will have to be answered by the woman Strikeforce enlisted to act as judge, jury, and, just maybe, executioner: Erin Toughill.

Toughill—a big, strong fighter with abundant punching power—will be an opponent unlike any other Cyborg has faced. It's the compelling matchup many have been expecting all along, including Strikeforce founder and CEO Scott Coker:

Coker likes the size Toughill (10-2 MMA, 0-0 SF) brings to the matchup. After all, it's a needed weapon when fighting Santos, who noticeably bulked up in the 24 hours between weigh-ins and fight night. Besides, the main reason Strikeforce signed Toughill, a former "American Gladiators" star and part-time pro boxer, was for the probable fight.

"That's why we brought her in – to fight Santos," he said.

Bowling isn't a sport I follow much, but this week it is on my mind, like so many others, thanks to Kelly Kulick and her win Sunday at the PBA Tournament of Champions. A sport that has been dominated by men as much as any other now has its first female champion. Billie Jean King gives voice to the significance of the event: "Kelly Kulick's win today at the PBA Tour's Tournament of Champions is not only historic, it serves as a motivational and inspirational event for girls and women competing at all levels all around the world."

For female athletes, old and young alike, this is a glimpse of the not-so-distant future in sports: women routinely competing against men, often victoriously.

Kulick talks about her big win with CBS's Harry Smith:

Watching the Australian Open this past week has reminded me just how annoying it is that tennis, a sport which has in recent memory generally been fair to female athletes, still makes a fundamental distinction between men's and women's play that blatantly patronizes female athletes. Why do men typically play five-set matches but women always three?

In truth, I don't like five-set matches, at least not for routine tournament play. I'd prefer a system in which all matches are three-set, except maybe the final. But whatever the system, have it the same for men and women both.

Rant over, now an aside. This morning I watched Serena Williams defeat Samantha Stosur, avenging her loss from when they last met. Great tennis players they are, but I think an arm-wrestling match might be even more entertaining—these two athletes have some guns!

In a recent interview, challenger Marloes Coenen makes clear that she is prepared to do whatever it takes to beat 145-pound champion Cristiane "Cyborg" Santos in their January 30 fight on Showtime: "I will not step aside for anyone, and I will definitely not step aside for Cyborg. If she will come out banging, I will do the same."

And if that's not enough to whet your appetite, this promo, which includes a complete recap of Coenen's fight with Roxanne Modaferri, should do the trick:

Another look—this time thanks to Visa—at some of the world's best female athletes preparing for the 2010 Winter Olympics, three members of "Team Visa":

Julia Mancuso



Lindsey Jacobellis



Angela Ruggiero




Something else Visa wants you to know:

mention that if they use their Visa card between now and February 28th, 2010, they have the opportunity to be able to show their children their favorite role models in person… after they win a free trip to the Olympics for life!

Official Rules

Thanks to Under Armour, we get to see just how hard ski racer Lindsey Vonn is working to prepare herself for the 2010 Olympics. Here she is a role model for not only her hard work but her insight. Vonn gets it—she understands that you must build your body for your sport, and that starts in the gym, most often with strength training:

In an interview full of revelations not altogether surprising, yet nonetheless disturbing, world-champion hurdler Jana Rawlinson (nee Pittman) tells Woman's Day that in a span of only 14 months she got breast implants and then had them removed. It is a classic example of what is perhaps best called the ugly paradox. Snippets from her interview throw into relief this paradox:

"When I looked in the mirror I just saw muscled arms, broad shoulders and big, strong legs," she says. "These are assets I need to run well, but they didn’t make me feel like an attractive woman.

"There are a couple of girls – who I won’t name – in world athletics who are Olympic champions, but they look like men – and I don’t want to be like that. I feel masculine enough as it is. That’s what pushed me into getting the first surgery for the enhancement."

While female athletes (and women generally) feel out of place in athletic bodies there can be little hope of raising the status of women in sport: it's hard to be a superior athlete without an athletic body. Thus by needlessly holding herself back the female athlete gives comfort to those who view her and her sport as inferior (always DIII to men's DI). I sometimes see talk of troubled trends in women's sports (persistent problems, in truth), yet here is the too often ignored root of it all. Progress will remain arduous until this last, most inimical hurdle is cleared.

I'm glad that Rawlinson decided to have the implants removed. I only hope that the deeper lesson doesn't endure unlearned:

Jana’s breasts went to a DD when she was expecting her son Cornelis, 3, and while she was breastfeeding. "Then I felt like a different person, soft and womanly, and I absolutely fell in love with my big boobs."

My little contribution to a "Best of '09" series by Women Talk Sports bloggers is a selection of favorites from this blog. I don't expect you'll find a particular mood or theme, less so a standard of quality, but rather, I hope, a few morsels that provoke reflection or simply entertain:

The story of Tina Lockwood

A Kind of Grace

Super shenanigans

Esther Williams

A lesson from the past

Athlete or sex symbol? A false dichotomy

A Wonder Woman of color?

Aneta Florczyk: setting records, inspiring women

Female Muscle: a little schooling for its detractors

Ruminating on the big fight

DC shakeup. The ugly paradox

The Body Issue

Advancing women's sports: largely a bootstrap process

Bridgett "Baby Doll" Riley and her art of violence


Happy New Year!


More "Best of '09" from other WTS bloggers:

Best of '09: Forming a community, WomenTalkSports.com

The "Best" of 2009 and the State of Girls & Women in Sports

Best of '09: A Fresh Meat’s Perspective

Best of '09 – A Year for Women in Wake

2009 Salute to Women in Sports

Victories and Failures in Women's Sports in 2009, or #FTW and #FAIL (Hot or Not for us old-timers)

Best of 2009: The Humble Emergence of Tanisha Wright

Best of the Best of 2009

Last week the Associated Press named Serena Williams its Female Athlete of the Year. Not long after the United States Sports Academy named Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbaeva its Female Athlete of the Year.

Despite its name, the USSA selects athletes from around the globe for its ballot. Isinbaeva received a plurality of 1.9 million votes cast worldwide. Williams, on the other hand, received 66 of 158 votes cast by AP editors.

A "Christmas spectacular" starring members of the University of Calgary basketball team:




Have a safe and happy holiday!

Kudos to the Nittany Lions for one of the great runs in sports history. (And who knows? It may not be over yet.)

Champions when they left, they return home status unchanged:

One gets an education in medical advances just by keeping up with Dara Torres. Recently, Torres underwent a new biotechnology procedure to repair a knee that had been giving her trouble. (Should we now call her Biotech Woman?) She talked about her experience on The Early Show this week:

The Penn State volleyball team are off for Tampa in pursuit of their third consecutive national championship. Saturday they earned a spot in the semifinals by winning their 100th consecutive match, the longest winning streak in women's Division I sports history (and second longest overall if men's Division I is admitted).

They face Hawaii (31-2) tomorrow night at 9pm ET. The match will be shown on ESPN2.