After a week when the discourse around women’s sport has been dominated by the actor Sydney Sweeney posing naked – and the intense backlash and counter-backlash – London will stage a major all-female track‑and‑field event on Friday. A sell-out crowd at the Athlos meeting at the StoneX Stadium in Hendon will feature Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson, along with the American stars Gabby Thomas and Tara Davis-Woodhall, competing for a prize fund of $1m (£750,000). There will be a red-carpet parade, celebrities galore and a celebration of the best of female sport.
The man behind it all, the US entrepreneur and investor Alexis Ohanian, believes this is just the start. Having made millions after cofounding the social media platform Reddit, and having set up the Angel City FC women’s football team, he is betting that track and field will thrive because of to the running boom and the Los Angeles Olympics. It is such an accessible sport.
So why can’t it be a hundred times more popular? Or even a thousand times more popular?” We will talk more about that later, but Ohanian also has thoughts on Sweeney’s controversial advert for the US sports prediction company Novig, and the reaction from hundreds of female athletes from around the globe. He is also aware that Sweeney then retaliated by sharing covers of semi‑nude athletes from ESPN magazine’s Body Issue, including one of Ohanian’s wife, Serena Williams – a post that many took to be implying hypocrisy among her critics.
It’s the false equivalence that I really support our athletes calling out about. The irony is my feed, at least, has been full of women athletes showing off, doing great women athlete stuff, which is awesome.” Ohanian also says that when an athlete poses for ESPN or Sports Illustrated it is very different. They have massive followings.
They have incredible stories. And, you know, them deciding to do an ESPN Body Issue is very obviously different from an actress just being naked for a commercial. So I have no problem understanding why it is totally OK for an athlete, man or woman, to pose naked tastefully.
They are physically fit and showing it off because they grinded in the gym every morning to play football, ski, or whatever the hell they do.” ” Ohanian makes for engaging company. But he is never more passionate than when making the case that women’s sports will be far bigger in a decade. Consciousness is warped by, or moulded by, excellence.” Ohanian’s journey into investing in women’s sport began in March 2019 when he started tweeting about how women’s football must be hugely undervalued given the USA women’s soccer team was so successful and had millions of followers.
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