We're realizing stereotypical sports fandom is actually male sports fandom- but the numbers are in, and they say the ladies are here and they love sports too! In fact Wasserman Collectives newest data set shows that over 70% of women surveyed from 30 countries consider themselves an avid sports fan! With a majority control of discretionary spending, they are an invaluable demographic. How do women experience sports fandom differently, and what's not so different? Why does it matter and how can it be better harnessed by the sports industry? Let's hear what the Vice President of the Wasserman (yes, that Wasserman, the big sport and music agency one!) Danielle Smith has to say.

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Aisha Praught-Leer is an Olympian, the 2018 Commonwealth Games Steeplechase Champion, and has held Jamaican records from the 1500m to the 5000m....but some of her favorite moments in sport are from the parts you never got to see!

Molly and Aisha also get into how she decided to structure her retirement, what she is doing now, the mental transition and it's challenges, what she'd like to see improve in the sport as a whole and what gives her hope. Thanks for Keeping Track!

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Alysia and Molly talk about some of the &Mother initiatives and beyond in how to support Mother Athletes at the Olympics and Paralympic Games.

"What we want for female athletes is to allow them to be holistically themselves....

this is what I tell my daughter. You have an opportunity to be yourself, you have an opportunity to be an upstander and you have the opportunity to leave the world better than you found it and if you listen to every negative voice....you are going to be the one who's on the bottom of the floor. What you want to do is be the one climbing the ladder and bringing people up with you"

-Alysia Montaño on racing while pregnant and not listening to negative comments

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Dr. Jessica Gall Myrick was a 3 time all American distance runner while at Indiana University and went on to become a social scientist and full professor at Penn State University. We talk about her work studying Media Psychology and health and given her running background we dive into how it relates to women’s sports- which she is equipped to speak on. In 2020 she did a study to see what happens to audiences when commentators use sexist language around women’s sport .Links to Jessica’s published works including her text book and her articles via her website emotionsandmedia.com. She’s also currently needing feedback for a study on college athletes so we link her survey as well https://pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_5zOXFRNpB19RFdk

Recap and links are posted at our site as always www.keeping-track.com

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Molly and Ro host a group run in Providence RI to support Alysia's &Mother Mom Forward 5k fundraiser. They held a live podcast afterward at Marathon Sports discussing the intersection of running, career and motherhood. Thanks to Vita Coco and Run Rhody for supporting this event and to support &Mother and all of Alysia's impactful work head to the link!

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Buy All in Stride Here!

We are speaking about the new book All In Stride by author Johanna Garton featuring the intertwining running journeys of Shadrack Kipchirchir and his wife Elvin Kibet as they go from young kids in Kenya to sports careers in the US NCAA system and US Army. Elvin has joined us as well and we will link back to her pre Olympic trials interview with us in February if you missed it. Elvin was a 6 time all American while at university of Arizona and qualified for the USA Olympic Trials Marathon 18 months post partum after having her first baby, her son Mylo in 2022. Her husband Shadrack had made multiple US World Championship teams and the 2016 US Olympic Team in the 10,000m.  Johanna is an author who in addition to writing All In Stride a has written such books as Edge Of The Map which is based on the lives of trailblazing mountaineer Christine Boskoff and her partner Charlie Fowler and Awakening East about moving her adopted children back to China for a year- her website is http://JohannaGarton.com .

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Molly and Alysia introduce Keeping Track X &Mother's newest partnership: The Mother's Lane; a series keeping up with athlete moms . We're going deep on the topics around the intersection of motherhood and sport with some of the amazing Mom's on the track, roads, sport leadership spaces and beyond. We'll talk about things like training while pregnant, post partum return to running, and a variety of challenges and topics cantered around thriving in career and motherhood . Come join in the conversation in the Mother's Lane! Today we talk with Makenna Myler, who recently finished 7th at the US Olympic Marathon Trials and has 2 kids under 3 years old. She has run a sub 5:20 mile in her third trimester (!) and has recent PBs of 68:28 at half marathon and 2:26:14 marathon.

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 Our final installment of the Marathon Team nTrials spotlight is Seargent Elvin Kibet

Elvin was a 6 time All American while at the University of Arizona graduating in 2015 -you can read more about her story and her childhood in Iten Kenya in the book All In Stride by Johanna Garton which comes out this spring! Its about the journeys of Elvin and her husband (US Olympian Shadrack Kipchirchir) as they come the the US and chase Olympic dreams in the WCAP program via the US Army. Elvin Is debuting in the marathon distance this weekend and speaks about navigating post partum training after having her son Mylo in 2022 and her interest in public health and using her education to help her village back in Kenya.

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Our second installment in our miniseries of spotlights around the women of the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials Marathon is Fiona O’Keeffe.

As a 6 time all American at Stanford graduating in 2020 Fiona got to chase some fast women on her own team in the middle distance events. She steps up to the Marathon as one of a few women debuting in the distance at the trials. Since joining the Puma Elite running team with coaches Amy Hastings Cragg and Alistair Cragg, Fiona has run great times as the events got longer like her 10k pb of 30:52 and 67:42 in the half - I think 26.2 will follow this trend and we can’t wait to watch her run the event! 

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In Erika's debut marathon this past spring she became the fastest American Born Black Woman Marathoner, she's also a two time USA road Champion and fresh off a big half marathon PB. She tells us about her preparations for the upcoming Olympic Team Trials Marathon on Feb 3rd -spoiler it's going well!

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