Malala Fund’s 2020 Game Changer series is championing 30 female athletes from around the world who are breaking barriers in both their sports and their communities.

Produced by Assembly, a digital publication and newsletter from Malala Fund, the Game Changer series highlights all the ways in which sports positively affect the lives of women and girls.

Representing 24 countries, the athletes profiled include Olympic and Paralympic stars as well as promising newcomers from across the sporting landscape. The breadth of experience and diversity of backgrounds provides a unique global snapshot of women in sports today.

Featured athletes range from Miki Matheson, a three-time Paralympic gold medalist, to Tanya Muzinda, a 15-year-old hoping to become the first female motocross champion from Africa. Readers have a chance to meet Atefa, the first girl in Afghanistan to land a kickflip, as well as hear from Tyasha Harris, the No. 7 pick in this year’s WNBA draft pick, about what it meant to her to play for Dawn Staley at South Carolina.

What unites the athletes in the series is their common commitment to using sports to push for critical social change within their own communities.

“The problems that our Game Changers are using their platforms to speak out against include lack of access to education, gender discrimination, racism, and negative perceptions of people with disabilities,” says Tess Thomas, Assembly’s editor.

“These are all issues that girls around the world face. So we wanted the young women who read Assembly to look at our Game Changers and see themselves and their lives reflected in these athletes’ stories and understand that they also have the potential to be leaders on the field and leaders in their communities.”

Many of the athletes highlighted are changing the history of both their sport and their country.

Pratima Sherpa was born and raised in the maintenance shed of a golf club where her parents still work in Nepal. Practicing during after hours on the course where she lived, Pratima is now her country’s top-ranked female golfer, and last year she made history as the first Nepali woman to compete on the LPGA Tour.

Lucía Montenegro is not simply one of the fastest wheelchair racers in the world. Her fight to become the first student with a disability accepted at her school changed the institutions enrollment policies, paving the way for further students with disabilities to enroll.

In an essay entitled “Levelling the playing field,” Malala Fund’s advocacy coordinator Laura Denham lays out the research showing the potential for sports to help girls thrive in school, at home and in their careers. When girls succeed on the field, they’re more likely to succeed in the classroom, and they are more likely to excel in traditionally male-dominated subjects like STEM. The annual wages of former athletes are also on average about 7% higher than those of non-athletes in the US, and a study by Ernst and Young found that 94% of business leaders played sports when they were younger.

Denham notes that despite the significant personal and social benefits of girls participation in sports, the world still has a long way to go until there’s equal participation across the genders.

“Practical and environmental factors — such as lack of facilities or transportation — often make it difficult for girls to participate in sports… Discriminatory gender norms also prevent girls from becoming athletes. In the U.K., 43% of girls surveyed said that fear of being judged about their appearance stopped them participating in sport and exercise.”

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TYASHA HARRIS (ICON SPORTSWIRE/GETTY IMAGES)

Through its athlete profiles, the Game Changers series illuminates the strong overlap between sports participation, academic achievement and leadership. For Thomas, this relationship between athletics and activism is anything but accidental.

“Sports is obviously a great way for girls to showcase their leadership abilities,” she says. “As you can see through the Game Changers series, they really extend that leadership off the field, and to the different issues that are affecting their communities.”

One such athlete is Uganda’s only competitive para-swimmer, 13-year-old Husnah Kukundakwe. Husnah says swimming has not only helped her develop confidence, it’s also given her a platform with which to speak up for girls’ education in Uganda, where many drop out of school at a young age due to poverty, early marriage, forced marriage, and pregnancy.

“When I realised that I actually motivate people,” Husnah told Assembly, “I wanted to keep doing it so that I can increase awareness about people with disabilities and girls going to school.”

The Game Changers series makes it clear that the benefits of investing in female athletes extend well beyond the field, as sports allow these young women to find both the confidence and the skillset needed to be leaders in the world.

“Malala Fund really believes that girls are not only the leaders of tomorrow,” says Thomas, “but the leaders of today, and their voices and their opinions need to be heard and need to be a part of the global conversation.”

The Malala Fund was co-founded by Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who first rose to prominence as an 11 year old by blogging about her experience under Taliban-rule in Pakistan. An international non-profit organization fighting for girls’ right to education, the Malala Fund launched Assembly in 2018 in order to create a platform for girls to tell their stories, share their ideas, and learn from one another.

You can meet all the athletes in the Game Changers series by clicking here.

The WNBA’s first week back delivered its share of highlights on and off the court as the league embarks on a historic 24th season inside its Florida bubble.

Here’s a recap of what went down as the W returned to action.

 

LAYSHIA CLARENDON DEDICATES SEASON TO BREONNA TAYLOR

Before tip-off of the opening game, the New York Liberty Layshia Clarendon dedicated the season to Breonna Taylor, promising the league would be a ‘voice for the voiceless.’

ORANGE HOODIE GOES VIRAL

The WNBA got a big assist from the NBA during opening weekend, as basketball hoopers in both bubbles rocked the now-iconic (and largely sold-out) orange hoodie, which quickly became the top-selling item on Fanatics. In case you needed any more proof that visibility matters.

IONESCU FOLLOWS UP DEBUT WITH OFFENSIVE EXPLOSION

Sabrina Ionescu’s WNBA debut may have been a bit of a dud with only 12 pts for the No. 1 draft pick. Her second game, however, was a taste of things to come. The New York Liberty guard went off for 33 pts on 6-10 from 3, to go along with seven rebounds and seven assists. That’s pretty good, right?

CANDACE PARKER: TRAINING THE NEXT GENERATION

The Los Angeles Sparks superstar got in some extra work on the practice court, showing her daughter a new move or two. Someone has ‘potential’ written all over them.

SYLVIA FOWLES BECOMES NEW ALL-TIME LEADING REBOUNDER

3,361 and counting. That’s a lot of boards.

AND SUE BIRD IS ON THE COVER OF SLAM9

Lucy Davis is a show jumping competitor who, as part of the US Show Jumping Team, took home silver at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Below, she spoke with Just Women’s Sports about the dedication required to compete at the highest level and how she overcame her own post-Olympics burnout.

I know this is a dumb question, but how do you get a rookie horse to jump over its first obstacle? And what does training look like from there?

You just kind of point and shoot. I mean, they’re natural. They’re literally bred to be jumpers like thoroughbreds are bred for speed and lightness. Jumpers are also bred for lightness, but more so in terms of agility. And then each breed has their sort of build, and they start jumping when they’re four or five and then you just continue to refine all of the technical aspects. As a rider, your goal is to be able to go forwards, backwards, left and right, in an instant. So you just have to keep refining what we call a horse’s rideability. Each jump on a course is set in a specific way, so your ability to adjust and to communicate with the horse is paramount. And that comes over years of working with them.

What, in your mind, separates the elite riders from the merely good? Is it preparation, relationship with the horse, ability to adapt?

I think all of the above. What’s beautiful about our sport, and what may be puzzling to outside audiences, is that you have a pretty diverse set of top riders. It’s men and women. At the Olympics, I was the only person on the podium in their twenties. The majority were in their thirties and forties, and some in their fifties. So there’s no kind of body type or age or anything that determines your prime. It’s definitely about experience and the bond between specific horses. And I think what separates the really good riders from the kind of Olympic riders is the mental aspect. You basically have two minutes where you can’t make a mistake. You make a mistake, you have a rail, you’re done, you’re out. But even then, you have to keep fighting to not have more rails because every one counts. But that ability to hyper-focus needs to be refined over time. Some people have more of a natural feel with the horses, and if those people work hard and also have the mental game, they are usually elite.

When did you realize that horses were going to be a big part of your life? 

Before I could walk. My mom would take me to the barn and put me on a horse, and I guess when she would try to make me leave the barn, I would start screaming. So I was definitely a crazy little pony girl from the beginning. It’s all I wanted to do. I tried to convince her to do homeschool and just grind, but thankfully she didn’t let me do that.

What do you think has specifically allowed you to be so successful at such a young age? 

I think I grew up a little bit differently than a lot of young riders, at least in the US. Being in California, we have our own sort of rogue circuit. And I was always a tenacious child competitor. My mom used to have this thing that she made up called the sportsmanship award, and if at the end of the weekend, I was a good sport, she would get me like a pair of cool socks or something else that was pretty random and insignificant. But it was enough where I was like, Oh, I want those socks. I have to be nice even if I don’t win. But I was definitely pretty competitive. And then, I had a series of “right place at the right time” moments, where I got to work with one of the best trainers in the world, Markus Beerbaum. Starting at age 17, I had a wonderful mentorship there. And I got lucky with Barron [Davis’ horse at the 2016 Olympics], who basically took me from being competitive with good horses to having a horse that could actually do the things that I dreamed of doing. That kind of kicked everything into gear for me.

The stars definitely have to align, but there’s a certain point where it’s like everybody has goals. And everybody has setbacks on the way to those goals. I think I just tried to keep a really open mind about those setbacks and get creative about them and use them not as setbacks but as different avenues to get to where I wanted. A lot of people get really hung up on the pressure, but I’m kind of good at hermitting and closing that off. There was a lot of sweat and blood and tears behind the scenes, but that’s another one of those things where every athlete has to make sacrifices. I commuted weekly from Stanford to compete. In the summer, I was living in the middle of nowhere, Germany, biking to the barn in the rain every day. All those moments compiled into something.

What surprised you the most about your experience in Rio?

Um, how many people came to equestrian? [Laughs.] It was awesome, because we’re obviously not as mainstream as other sports, but actually within Brazil, there’s a huge part of Brazilian culture, and particularly within the military, that’s into equestrian. The facility itself was out on the edge of a military base in Rio, so we had all of these families and people that have grown up riding or have done it through military training come out. The crowds were awesome. But so was the whole experience. I always tell people that, I feel like anything you dream about or talk about for four years, once it happens is always kind of a letdown. And this was the only time in my life when the experience totally lived up to and surpassed expectations. There was definitely some fear beforehand that that wouldn’t be the case. Because I’ve been obsessed with going to the Olympics since I was six years old. So there was some panic, like, what if it’s not cool? But there’s this energy everywhere that comes from having so many athletes be in the same boat. There’s a camaraderie, and everybody is so in the zone. It’s inspiring.

You’ve talked elsewhere about experiencing burnout after the games. What was that like? 

Yeah, I had a full on crisis. Like I said, the Olympics had been my dream since I was six years old. They were always my goal. Everything I did was somehow dictated by that. Every morning before class I went to the barn to ride. Every morning I was in Germany I biked to the barn in the rain, even though I could get a ride, because I told myself if I take any shortcuts, I’m not going to get to where I need to go. There were so many small things like that where you beat yourself up. And you never think about what happens after you reach your goal. After the Olympics, I took a month off to celebrate, and then I went straight back to work. I was in Holland. It was November and starting to get cold. I was living in another small town with no family or friends outside of the people I rode with. And it was kind of, well, okay, I reached my goal. So what am I working towards now?

I’m a very goal oriented person, and at that time I just didn’t have a direction. It was the first time I had thoughts about other things I could be doing with my life, especially seeing what other friends were doing after school. And then all my stuff got stolen, which led to everything just hitting all at once. I had a full blown kind of meltdown, which led me to come back to the States. It was a very dark sort of year, honestly, but ultimately, it was one of those things where I thought good, I had that meltdown, I got over it. And as I started competing again I realized that I still had the motivation to ride. I realized that I actually love doing what I’m doing and I desperately want to go to Tokyo. I want to keep building the Pony App and continue to design my life around horses because at the end of the day I can’t give that up. And now we’re here.

Do you think those were realizations you could have come to without the meltdown, or was that a prerequisite for some of these larger insights? 

Oh no, that was definitely a prerequisite. I mean… we don’t have a season. Equestrian is all year round. It’s every weekend in non-coronavirus times. You’re kind of constantly hustling to build new mounts to get to their peak, and then you’re bringing up the other ones. You’re building a kind of portfolio, basically, and it’s sort of nonstop, and you’re traveling around, until one day you wake up and you’ve been, you know, running the rat race.

I think that pause allowed me to appreciate why I got into it in the first place, and why I was going to continue to do it for the time being. It let me focus on, okay, maybe other than Tokyo, I don’t have my next big, life’s-mission goal. But that’s okay. When I was in college, I was so hyper-focused and goal driven, and just kind of irrationally obsessed with making the Olympics. They were like the rings in the Lord of the Rings. They had this power over me where everything I did was focused on that goal. Now there’s this sort of mourning and admiring of my past self, as well as just accepting that I have different and other priorities. I still want some of the same things, like to go to the Olympics, but I know I can go about it differently and not let it consume me.

What does a typical day of training look like now and how will that change as we approach the 2021 Olympics?

Now I ride about five horses a day, right in the morning. And then usually in the afternoon or evening I do some kind of supplement training. Biking, running, various exercises that are riding related. Leading up to the Olympics, it’ll be a lot more preparation for competitions and trials, which involves a lot more jumping and our version of scrimmaging, where you’re doing practice rounds to simulate competition.

Do you think, generally speaking, athletes experience less doubt regarding their life trajectory or that they’re simply better trained to persevere through doubt? 

I’d like to think the latter. What’s nice about this sort of training program, the competition schedule and the goal setting is that you impose a structure on your life that just permeates into other areas, so that when things go wrong, you have a structure and an idea of where you want to go. It’s a lot easier to deal with those setbacks as exciting challenges, rather than thinking like, Oh my God, this is a sign, or some kind of horrible diversion.

At this point in your career, how do you measure improvement? 

Mmm, that’s a hard one. I think with horses we’re lucky because each new horse brings sort of a new adventure and a new challenge. So if I’m working with a younger horse and introducing them into the top level, and they go and have a clear round and I place sixth, I’ll be ecstatic. Whereas if I did the same competition with Barron, that result would be a letdown. I think setting horse-specific tasks allows you to be happy with small wins, because the number of clear rounds, and the number of wins for even the number one rider in the world, is much lower than the number of times you hit a rail or don’t win. So if you’re just focused on winning all the time, you’re really setting yourself up for unhappiness.

The Houston Dash and the Utah Royals put on a show Tuesday morning in their opening Challenge Cup clash, scoring six goals between them in a back and forth contest that ended in a 3-3 draw.

Here’s a recap of how it went down:

34’: Diana Matheson puts the Royals on the board off an Amy Rodriguez cross
45+1’: Rachel Daly responds, leveling the game in first-half stoppage time
47’: Rachel Daly, AGAIN.
61’: Rachel Daly scores her third — but it’s disallowed for goalie interference. On a day where each team fill up the score sheet, it’s a goal which doesn’t count that ends up being the most talked about play.
67’: Even with Daly’s goal taken off the scoreboard, Shea Groom looks like she’s put it away for the Dash when she blasts one from distance into the net.
82’: That is, until Verónica Boquete decides she has something to say.
89’: Then, in the 89th minute, Tziarra King, the rookie out of NC State, heads in her first-ever NWSL score, completing the comeback and tying the game.

Next up: both teams play Saturday, July 4th.

Utah play Sky Blue FC at 12:30pm EST, and Houston takes on OL Reign at 10pm. You can stream both games on CBS All Access.

In an interview with The New York Times, Olympic champion Laurie Hernandez detailed the years of emotional and verbal abuse she suffered under coach Maggie Haney. USA Gymnastics has now suspended Haney from the sport for eight years.

The interview sheds light on abuse that, according to Hernandez, “was all just so twisted that I thought it couldn’t be real.” When Haney would scream at her for small mistakes, push her to practice through serious injuries or berate her for gaining weight, Hernandez blamed herself and assumed that this was how all Olympians were made.

“I thought I deserved all of it,” Hernandez said. “The toughest part about it was that there were no bruises or marks to show that it was real.”

According to Hernandez, puberty was an especially challenging time in the gym.

“Maggie was saying to me, ‘You already have a boxy body type, so we’re going to have to keep an eye on your weight,’ or shout, ‘You’re so busty!’ for everyone to hear.”

When Hernandez began binge-eating and purging, Haney would praise her for losing weight.

“Any compliment was like holy water,” Hernandez said. “It went from one day walking on eggshells with her to her saying the next day that ‘we’re in this together.’ She really knew how to mess with your head.”

After the years of abuse, Hernandez said that she struggled with “full-on major depression” and “a ginormous fear of doing something wrong, perfectionism to the extreme.” Hernandez has since moved to California and began treatment for her depression.

Under the guidance of new coaches Jenny Zhang and Howie Liang, Hernandez has found her love for gymnastics once again. “Whether I make it to Tokyo or not, I’m doing something I love on my own terms,” said Hernandez, “and people treat me the way I want to be treated, and that makes me happy.”

After coming forward with the allegations and testifying at the hearings for USA Gymnastics, Hernandez is content with Haney’s suspension.

“I thought they were just going to try to sweep it under the rug,” she said of USA Gymnastics. “But, wow, they did the right thing. I can’t believe they actually did the right thing.”

When asked how she felt after testifying against her longtime coach, Hernandez confessed that she was initially uneasy but once other gymnasts confirmed the abuse, she realized she wasn’t alone.

“It was really nice to finally tell people what happened,” said Hernandez. “I did it for little Laurie and all the little kids out there.”

On an Instagram Live chat with Seattle Storm’s Breanna Stewart, New York Liberty’s Sabrina Ionescu discussed her life since becoming the WNBA’s No. 1 draft pick on April 17. For the former Oregon guard, it was a dream come true.

“People had been talking about it the entire year I was playing [at Oregon] – that I could potentially be in New York,” Ionescu said. “It’s still different than hearing your name being called and finally being on the team and able to talk to them like you are on the roster.”

During the conversation, the two athletes discussed a variety of topics including their shared experience of being a No. 1 draft pick, how they are staying in shape during the COVID-19 crisis, their hopes for the 2020 WNBA season and their thoughts on what team would have won the NCAA women’s tournament if it had not been canceled – both women picked Ionescu’s Oregon Ducks.

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ERIN CHANG/ISI PHOTOS

In 2016, Stewart was drafted No. 1 by the Seattle Storm and is currently entering into her fifth year with the team. Ionescu, meanwhile, has yet to meet her new coaches and teammates with the Liberty due to the coronavirus crisis.

Ionescu, currently at home in Walnut Creek, California, was practicing at her middle school gym when she was notified of a letter Stewart had written to her before the WNBA draft.

“I was honored to be able to see that letter,” Ionescu told Stewart. “It was awesome to get insight on your thought process and how I should be dealing with stuff.”

As for advice for Ionescu and other WNBA rookies, Stewart shared, “The biggest piece of advice I could give you is to really enjoy it. I know times are different than they were when I came into the league, because of COVID-19. But try to embrace everything.

“Once the league does happen and we get back into it, it’s going to be like a whirlwind. That’s what I remember of my rookie season – everything went so, so fast. Now I look up and I’m going into my fifth year. Just continue to enjoy it and work hard.”

USA Gymnastics has suspended elite coach Maggie Haney from the sport for eight years after multiple athletes claimed that she verbally and emotionally abused them.

The accusations – which included forcing athletes to train through serious injuries – were laid out during two months of hearings in front of an independent panel.

Olympic champion Laurie Hernandez testified against Haney while world champion Riley McCusker wrote a critical letter against the coach. According to Karen Goeller, another gymnastics coach who submitted a formal complaint against Haney in May of 2019, at least six families accused the longtime coach of abuse.

As a result of the hearings, Haney is banned from membership and coaching of any USA Gymnastics athlete or in any member gym for eight years. The suspension will immediately be followed by a two-year probationary period after which Haney may reapply for membership if she completes specific Safe Sport courses.

Haney owns MG Elite Gymnastics in Morganville, New Jersey, where she continued coaching athletes throughout the USA Gymnastics investigation. Since 2013, Haney has coached at least one gymnast on the junior or senior national team each year.

Judie Saunders, an attorney representing Hernandez and other athletes in the case, is confident that Haney’s suspension is “a micro step in the right direction for how athletes are treated in the hypercompetitive world of sports.”

The National Women’s Soccer League is making plans to return to the field by mid-May, according to Steven Goff of the Washington Post.

While the specifics have yet to be determined, the league is projecting training camps to begin May 16 with the season starting without fans on June 27. As NWSL Players Association director Brooke Elby told Goff, “We have aspirations, but we won’t know until we get there. We can’t speculate because it could change in the next hour or the next day.”

With just nine teams, the NWSL may be poised to return earlier than other major sports leagues that have more players and coaches to account for.

One plan currently being considered by the NWSL is to keep all nine teams within the Washington D.C. area for the 2020 regular season – an idea that is exponentially more feasible with fewer moving parts.

The NWSL shares this advantage with the WNBA, a league with just 12 teams. The portability and cohesiveness of both leagues could help women’s sports return quicker than others – giving them unrestricted access to a sports-starved audience and, potentially, a larger fan base.

While no return plan has been finalized, the proactive nature of the NWSL is an encouraging sign for both women’s sports and sports fans everywhere.

In an interview with the New York Times, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading public health expert on President Trump’s coronavirus task force, discussed the possibility of sports in the US returning this year.

Leagues across the country are currently mulling plans for restarting play, ideally this summer.

Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said that a key variable will be whether the country is able to test large groups of people in a safe and expedient manner. Although the rate of confirmed cases of the virus is decreasing across the country, Fauci said there will likely be a second surge.

Here are the most important quotes from his interview:

On what needs to happen before sports return:

  • “What we need to do is get it, as a country and as individual locations, under control. That sometimes takes longer than you would like, and if we let our desire to prematurely get back to normal, we can only get ourselves right back in the same hole we were in a few weeks ago.”

  • “We’ve got to make sure that when we try to get back to normal, including being able to play baseball in the summer and football in the fall and basketball in the winter, that when we do come back to some form of normality, we do it gradually and carefully. And when cases do start to rebound — which they will, no doubt — that we have the capability of identifying, isolating and contact tracing.”

On playing without spectators:

  • “I’m not saying this is the way to go, but you want to at least consider having players, if they’re going to play, play in front of a TV camera without people in the audience. And then test all the players and make sure they’re negative and keep them in a place where they don’t have contact with anybody on the outside who you don’t know whether they’re positive or negative.”

On how many tests need to be performed:

  • “I don’t think you should put a number on it. I think it depends on the level of outbreak and how many people you’re going to have to contact trace. Then when you have things under control, then you can start doing surveillance studies and getting out there looking for antibodies.”

If it’s fair that sports leagues get first access to tests:

  • “I hope when we get to that point, when we’re going to try and get the sports figures tested, then we will have enough tests so that anybody who needs a test can get a test. I can’t give you a date, but I know that tests are rapidly scaling up in numbers over the next several weeks and months.”

And if some sports might simply have to skip a season:

  • “I don’t want to make this conversation sound like it’s going to be an easy thing. We may not be able to pull this off. We’re going to have to see: Is it doable? Do we have the capability of doing it safely? Because safety, for the players and for the fans, trumps everything. If you can’t guarantee safety, then unfortunately you’re going to have to bite the bullet and say, ‘We may have to go without this sport for this season.’”

On Wednesday, the NCAA Board of Governors announced its support for a new policy allowing student athletes to cash in on their talent.

The proposal would permit athletes to be paid for endorsements, social media contracts and more – so long as they abide by certain restrictions and limitations. These rule changes are expected to go into effect at the start of the 2021-22 academic year.

In recent years, the NCAA has faced increasing pressure to allow student athletes to profit from their talent. While the new recommendations include significant financial opportunities for athletes, they also maintain ways for the NCAA and schools to regulate and cap endorsement deals.

Among other constraints, athletes will not be able to be paid directly by their schools and endorsements cannot be used for recruiting or by boosters. These restrictions may prove difficult to enforce and the NCAA has begun asking Congress for help in creating a single overarching law that applies to all schools.

This new NCAA proposal attempts to reach a compromise between paying athletes for their work and maintaining the organization’s amateur status. As NCAA President Mark Emmert stated in January, “The existential crisis to me is: Can we respond in a way that makes sense for our students and supports the college sports model?”

With states already passing their own laws permitting student athlete compensation and rallying support from professional athletes like LeBron James, the new NCAA recommendations arrive just in time.