Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Women Breaking Records in Sport

Surf kayker from Dave Young on Flickr
Reading this month that Stephanie Gilmore is the first woman surfer on the cover of Transworld magazine, made me want to know what other firsts are going on out there for women in sport.

You could be negative and wonder why these barriers ever existed but better to keep on knocking them and finding new ways to have fun!

Some memorable firsts:
1.    1970s – first sanctioned women’s Muay Thai fights in Thailand. Then a big break until 1997.
2.    2005 – Eileen Murphy is the first woman to kayak around Ireland
3.    February 1994. First women boxers in a sanctioned amateur fight in the USA
4.    Maya Gaberira - first professional female Big Wave surfer (as far as I know!)
5.    October 2001. First women boxers in a sanctioned amateur fight in Ireland
6.    Katherine Switzer and Roberta Gibb were the first women to run a marathon in 1972 – literally fighting  off the officials who tried to stop them. Switzer’s running mates body-blocked the officials 
7.    1995 – Alison Hargreaves was the first woman to climb Everest unaided. Tragically she later died climbing K2.
8.    2004 – Beezie Madden becomes the first woman show jumper to rank in the world’s Top Three.
9.    Olympic firsts include 2012 for women’s boxing, 1948 for kayaking, 1984 for the marathon and 1900  for the first female Olympians.
10.    The first Olympic sports open to women were yachting, equestrian events, croquet, tennis, golf and ballooning.

Do you know of any other firsts for women doing sport?
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