Why Female Athletes Need Their Own Sports Research

As we head into the holiday weekend here in the U.S., I thought I would write a simple post recognizing some of the awesome accomplishments 40+ female athletes have made in the first half of 2025.

I ended up inspired to say more (shocking, I know), but right up front, let’s celebrate a few:

⛷️ Lindsey Vonn, 40, shattered age stereotypes when she finished second in a World Cup super-G race, becoming the oldest woman to stand on a World Cup podium. She is now aiming for the 2026 Winter Olympics.

🚴🏻‍♀️ Heather Jackson, 41, elite triathlete turned ultrarunner and gravel cyclist, won the Unbound XL gravel race (~350 miles), breaking the previous women’s record by 1:27:18, with a time of 20:57:57.

🏃🏾‍♀️ Courtney Dauwalter, 40, won the Crown King Scramble 50K, finished second overall, and set a new women’s course record with a time of 4:19:49, beating the previous record by 7 minutes.

🤸🏻 Oksana Chusovitina celebrated her 50th birthday by winning silver in the vault at the Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Tashkent, Uzbekistan—defying gymnastics norms and competing against athletes half her age.

🏃🏾‍♀️ Camille Herron, 43, won the Ice Age 50‑Mile Trail Race in a time of 7:44:41, and continues to excel in multi-day events around the world.

🏊🏻‍♀️ Gabrielle Rose, 47, became the oldest swimmer to reach an A-final in the 100 m breaststroke at a USA Nationals, placing 7th with a time of 1:08.54. 

“Age is a big way that we limit ourselves,” 47-year-old Rose told Olympics.com ahead of the trials. “There’s something to be said about continuing to set big goals, exploring and pushing yourself. We’re capable of more than we think sometimes.”

Every week, we highlight badass athletes in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond who are showing us that our preconceived notions about our athletic ceilings simply aren’t based in reality. I believe we’re just beginning to recognize our possibilities, because, as I’ve mentioned before, we’re the first generation to have started playing sports young in large numbers. (Hell, the sports bra wasn’t even invented until 1977!) Imagine what future 40+ women will be able to achieve with female specific research that starts young and spans the spectrum of our entire lives. 

Female Athletes Follow a Different Trajectory

We are finally shining a spotlight on how girls and young women develop very differently in sport from their male counterparts. Decorated American distance runner Lauren Fleshman highlights this in her bestseller Good for a Girl (very highly recommend), where she explains that the changes girls experience in puberty–developing hips and breasts and the onset of the menstrual cycle–often lead to performance dips in a female athlete’s trajectory. But a dip is not a permanent decline. Far from it. If we can support girls and keep them in sport, and not pressure them to conform to male standards, they can soar into their 20s and 30s (and as we’re seeing, 40s, even at the elite, professional level in some sports). 

We see the same as women go through other phases of their reproductive lives, like when women get pregnant and have children. We are seeing more women than ever returning to sport on the highest stages because we understand that getting pregnant and having children doesn’t have to be the end of the line. Allyson Felix, Serena Williams, Dara Torres, Kristin Armstrong, Candace Parker (I could go on…) have all shown us what’s possible with support. Imagine how much more would be possible with research and understanding and clear guidelines that don’t leave pregnant/postpartum active women searching for answers that are more often than not elusive. 

I’d argue that we are definitely seeing a similar phenomenon with perimenopause and postmenopause. I hear story after story about women who feel at the top of their game coming into their 40s and then hit the skids in very short order when perimenopause enters the chat. This is a chaotic time, very similar to puberty, where if we just help them through with symptom management, training and nutrition adjustments, and general support, they can find themselves on solid ground and continue to perform and often see a rebound when they reach the other side. 

But we need more research, which is why I am very excited about the development of the Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute in Boston. But I’m also realistic. It’s gonna be a while until we reap the fruits of those labors. So, in the meantime, I think the big take home message women should absorb from all this is that a dip is not a permanent decline. It’s a chance to take stock of what your body is doing now, assess what it needs, and adjust accordingly. I believe we can benefit from understanding that, as women, we go through big physiological transitions, and though sometimes we may feel down, we are never truly out.