New alliance could be ‘transformational’ for women’s sport

A new alliance of world-leading sports scientists could be “transformational” for women’s sport, according to one of Britain’s most successful Paralympians Emma Wiggs.

The Global Alliance for Female Athletes (GAFA) will see leading representatives from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand join forces to share best practice resources and make their research freely available all in one place.

The aim is to educate and empower female athletes, and address the gender gap that exists in sports science research, something three-times Paralympic champion Wiggs believes has held women back.

“When I stared my career everything that was being prescribed to us as female athletes was based off male research,” says the 44-year-old.

“This alliance will be transformational. It’ll be a real turning point for female athletes across the globe to have a trusted, relevant resource to go to that isn’t just something you see on social media.”

The initiative has been driven by Dr Richard Burden, female health and performance lead at the UK Sports Institute.

“We just don’t understand enough about many of the challenges that female athletes face,” he said.

“For example ‘how does the menstrual cycle influence performance?’ Because no one has a good grasp of that, there is no competitive advantage to protect.

“That could change in the future [but right now] it’s not really a conversation, which underlines just how far behind research into female athlete health is compared to male athletes.

“The intent is to be able to provide for female athletes around the world who don’t necessarily have access to the same sort of resources that athletes in the UK do.

“We intend to breakdown economic barriers, language barriers and cater for different impairments. If we’re successful we’ll get engagement from all corners of the globe.”

To help close the gap, future research projects will be carried out collaboratively rather than in silos.

Dr Rachel Harris from the Australian Institute of Sport believes the alliance will lead to even greater results on the world stage:

“The gap in knowledge, coupled with wide-spread misinformation, means athletes often miss the early warning signs and go undiagnosed or are inadequately treated for conditions like endometriosis,” she said.

“Athletes are then forced to miss training days which reduces their chances of making competition or in some cases sees them leave the sport altogether. Our goal is to change this.”