No Boundaries: This is What a Woman in Sport Looks Like
Across sports, disciplines, and expectations, female athletes are continuously pushing the boundaries of what it means to be a woman in sport.
From snow-covered slopes to rugby pitches, from skate parks to the Olympic Games, here’s our pick of inspiring athletes’ stories from across the world.
Ester Ledecká
Most of us would struggle to get ourselves down a black slope on either skis or a snowboard. Ester Ledecká can not only do both exceptionally well, but made history at the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics when she stunned the world, and herself, by clinching a gold medal in Super-G Alpine skiing, her “weaker” sport.
Ledecká crossed the line in 1:21.11, beating the time of Austrian skier Anna Veith by just 0.01s – a triumph so unexpected that some have already declared Veith a winner, who started her celebratory interviews. But no one was more in disbelief than Ledecká herself, who stood frozen at the bottom of the hill, staring at the scoreboard, waiting for what she assumed was a glitch to be corrected, while her camp celebrated. A week later, Ledecká went on to win gold in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding – becoming the first athlete to win gold in both skiing and snowboarding.
Just seconds before winning her first Olympic gold, as the 22-year-old Czech snowboarder was about to propel herself down the slope at the Jeongseon Alpine Centre, there was already talk about how she’s about write a new page of history by competing in both super-G (Alpine skiing) and parallel giant slalom (snowboarding) at a single Olympic Games. What no one realised at the time was just how true that statement would become.
Lauren Fleshman
Lauren Fleshman is one of the most decorated American collegiate athletes ever. In her time at Stanford University, she became a 15-time All-American and five-time NCAA champion. Graduating from Stanford in 2003, whilst sponsored by Nike, she became two-time US champion in the 5,000m.
It wasn’t long before Fleshman saw a different world that hid behind the glitz and glamour of high-performance sport. She soon began to realise there was an ugly truth, that women in sport aren’t treated the same as men. In her memoir she recalls when she was younger other women would restrict their diet, Lauren soon went on to fall into the same trap of her peers where she would cut her weight with the idea it would make her run faster.
After suffering a navicular stress fracture which she failed to return from, Fleshman has gone on to write a book Good for a Girl: My Life Running in a Man’s World. This is more than a book; it is a campaign for change in women’s sport. It went on to win the 2023 William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. Alongside this, Fleshman continues to campaign for change whilst coaching her own team of talent female athletes.
Beatrice Vio Grandis (Bebe Vio)
Bebe Vio is an Italian paralympian specialised in wheelchair fencing. After contracting a bad case of meningitis at the age of 11, to save her life the doctors had to amputate her forearms and her legs to the knee.
Her resilience and determination to keep practicing her sport led her to become the first fencer in history to compete with no arms or legs. In 15 years she’s been active on the piste she won two Paralympic golds, three World Championships and four European Championships.
She made her paralympic debut in 2016, at only 19 years old, and won the gold medal right away. From that moment on, she won a medal in every Paralympics she competed in.
Alongside her sporting achievements, Vio also contributed to founding the Bebe Vio Academy, a special training programme to make sport accessible to everyone and especially kids with disabilities. She is also a TV presenter, a voice actress and the published author of two books: They gave me a dream (2015) and If it seems impossible then you can do it (2017).
Raicca Ventura
Raicca is the 2024 World Skateboarding Park Champion. The 18 year-old made her international competitions debut in 2023, when she finished 4th in the World Skateboarding Championship. Last year, Raicca became the best park skater in the world when achieved gold in the World Skateboarding Championship. The athlete also achieved her first Summer Olympics Games. In the Paris grounds, she achieved the women’s skate park semifinals, finishing 12th place. The athlete is a big promise in the Brazilian skate scenario and brings high expectations for the next Olympic cycle to LA28.
She began 2025 as the third-best skate park athlete in the world by the World Skate ranking. Besides the young age, Raicca Ventura is building a notable career, in 2023 she won the silver medal at the Pan American Games in Santiago.
The skater is from São Paulo, Brazil, and started skating when she was only six-year-old, influenced by her father and uncle. Raicca started professionally competing at 11 years old, a couple of years later, when she was 14-years-old, she joined the national academy and principal team. For sure, the expectations are high for the next Olympic cycle, and maybe she will be the first woman to achieve a skate park medal for Brazil.
Jade Konkel
Jade became Scotland’s first full-time female rugby player in 2016 whilst remarkably balancing being a fully trained firefighter with the London Fire Brigade. When she’s not first to the breakdown on the pitch, she’s first to the scene off it. She is captain of Harlequins in Premiership Women’s Rugby, the highest tier of club rugby in England.
She was part of Scotland’s WXV2 winning squad in 2023, and captained Harlequins to a third-place finish in the 24/25 season. The Inverness-born Konkel recalls being worried to tell her closest family members that she was pursuing a career in rugby for fear of judgments about her career choice and sexuality.
Konkel is a vegan as well as a qualified personal trainer and rugby coach. She earned her 50th international cap for Scotland in 2022 against England.
