Hear Her Sports

Robyn Lesh is a design engineer with American Magic, a racing boat preparing for the America’s Cup. Robyn manages weight and center gravity of the boat as well as being in charge of 3D printing, 3D scanning and 3D virtual reality. Robyn grew up in Washington State and has been sailing since she was 6 days old. She graduated from MIT in 2016 where she spent four years as a varsity Skipper on the MIT sailing team and earned her degree as a mechanical engineer-ocean engineer.

In the midst of cancelled races and uncertainty, Vice Director of The Cyclists’ Alliance, Rhian Ravenscroft is looking to rethink how women’s cycling and racing is structured. We talk about the current situation at the UCI, The Cyclists’ Alliance, their recent Rapha Foundation grant, and inequity in cycling. The Cyclists’ Alliance is the labor organization representing professional cyclists in UCI Women's World Tour events. Rhian is a corporate and commercial lawyer with 15 years experience. As the Vice-Director, she is in charge of working with stakeholders like the UCI, teams, and race organizers on a daily basis. Like everyone who works at The Cyclists’ Alliance she is a former racer. Rhian raced competitively from the age of 9 as a runner, triathlete, and cyclist.

Sarah Axelson, Title IX expert, Senior Director of Advocacy at the Women’s Sports Foundation joins the show in honor of the 48th anniversary of Title IX on June 23rd, 2020. She gives a fascinating history of the law, how it works, unfulfilled promises, and hope going forward. Sarah is a lifelong athlete, considers herself a byproduct of Title IX, played 4 years of NCAA Division III varsity softball. She graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from the University of Mary Washington and recently received her Master of Public Administration degree through the Executive MPA program in the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at Baruch College.

Deanna Belleny Co-Founder of Diversify Dietetics earned her Bachelor’s degree in Human Nutrition and Foods at the University of Houston and her Master’s in Public Health from the University of Texas School of Public Health. She is the Program Manager for Systems Transformation at Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care. Diversify Dietetics increases the racial and ethnic diversity in the field of nutrition by empowering nutrition leaders of color. Join our conversation on nutrition, mentorship, systematic racism in health care, inequity exposed by the current health crises, and what she sees in the future beyond the pandemic.

Marinel de Jesus, founder of Peak Explorations, is a lawyer, writer, a public speaker, a world traveler, and a nomad who leads tours most often high-altitude mountain trekking all over the world. In 2016, she launched Peak Explorations and Brown Gal Trekker with the mission to create inclusion for local/indigenous women in the trekking tourism industry as guides and porters worldwide. She just completed, We Are Nomads: A True Story of an All Women Migration in Altai, her first documentary film, made in collaboration with local Kazakhs. We talk about her documentary, power dynamics in trekking, women leaderships as porters and guides, and traveling in the future.

Former track and field pro athlete and new novelist Faith Dismuke ran for Villanova an NCAA Division I school and for USA Track and Field. In 2015, Faith earned a Master’s degree from the University of Connecticut with a focus on media's influence on the representation and psychology of student-athletes of color. Her first novel Sprint Dreams is the story of eighteen-year-old college sophomore, Makeda Delane. It’s the story of track and field, determination to make it to Nationals, relationships, and being at college. Faith and I talk a lot about the book, characters, and her inspiration.

Team USA Triathlete Tamara Gorman won two World Triathlon Championships (as a junior and as an Under 23 competitor). In 2019 she medaled in three Triathlon World Cups. Tamara had her sights on making the Tokyo Olympic Team. Then, in mid-February 2020, she had surgery, throwing that into question. Now fully recovered, she’s taking advantage of the extra year before Tokyo to get stronger and better. For right now she offers a wise goal of just training to be the best each day. We also talk about finding water to swim in, training by feel and by data, and traveling by plane and car to get home.

Maggie Steffens, two-time Olympic Gold medalist, MVP at both 2012 and 2016 Games.  In London 2012, her first Olympic Games, Maggie tied the record for most goals in an Olympics with 21. Maggie has also won three World Championship Golds, three NCAA Championship titles while at Stanford, and, in 2017, was named Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches Player of the Year. Maggie is actively training and is Team Captain upcoming Tokyo Olympics. She talks about data in sport, shares her experience of Tokyo Olympics postponement, training without a pool, expanding exposure of role models, value of more stories of female athletes, sport IQ, beauty and difficulty of water polo.

Tamyra Mensah Stock current World Champion wrestler is on her way to Tokyo Olympics. This year she dominated by winning golds at Pan American Games, Pan American Championships, Golden Grand Prix Ivan Yarygin, and Dan Kolov International Championship. She is ranked number 1 in US at 68 kilos. And to top that all off she won the United World Wrestling’s women’s wrestler of the year. Tamyra shares the best description I’ve heard of what it’s like to work with a coach along with important stories about being proudly dominant on and off the mat.

Olga Harvey, Chief Strategy and Impact Officer at the Women's Sports Foundation on how WSF is handling a new reality of social distancing and how they are pivoting plans to stay focused on their mission of enabling all girls and women to reach their potential in sports and life. Olga is a native of Moscow, Russia. She received a Business degree from Cornell University while playing D1 tennis. Olga was the team captain and holds a 21-0 record in Ivy League singles play. She was two-time Ivy League Player of the year and was inducted into Cornell Athletic Hall of Fame. To this day, Olga is an avid tennis player and volunteer with USTA. She serves as the Officer on the USTA Eastern Board of Directors and is a member of the USTA National Committee for Diversity and Inclusion.

Physical therapist, coach, strength trainer Tracy Fober talks body weight training and movement based fitness. Training at home doesn’t mean limiting athletic development. Tracy’s methods can be used to great effect even once we all can train wherever we want again. Tracy owns Iron Maven Performance Health, in Park City, Utah. She worked with US Ski & Snowboard leading up to 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeonchang. Her clients range from young, old, those rehabbing after injury, and professional athletes. She also talks xc ski team, women coaches, and battling Covid 15.  

Katie Nageotte, one of the top American pole vaulters, currently ranked 4th in the world, so also one of the best in the world explains how she’s training during Covid-19 and what her plans are going forward now that Olympics are postponed. In 2017 she started training with coach Brad Walker and has been making incredible gains for the past several years. Some recent results include a Gold medal at the 2018 USA Indoor Track and Field Championships and a Silver at 2019 Pan Am Games.

Sarah Kelleher is a high performance coach and strategic consultant supporting individuals, teams, and organizations to flourish. She is Associate Consultant Team Coach at Leading Edge, a performance coaching company. Sarah has been involved in high performance coaching at the international level for over eight years currently in her sixth cycle as Lead Coach, England Hockey Under 18 Girls with experience as assistant coach to GB / England Under 21s. (And we’re talking field hockey her.) Her extensive coaching combined with her own senior international playing career, spanning 10 years AND as Irish Captain, provides her with an in-depth understanding of what it takes to maximize performance in a team.

Lucinda Brand professional Dutch road and cyclocross cyclist on coronavirus in March 2020, training with uncertainly, Olympics, and the past cyclocross season. She has been a profressional rider for eleven years. On the road she’s won four Dutch National Championships, GP de Plouay-Bretagne, three stages in the Giro d’Italia Femminile, and the World Championships team time trial. During this past cycloscross season she won three world Cup races: Namur, Grand Prix Erik de Vlaeminck, VLA-mink and Grand Prix Adri van der Poel.

Patricia Destine, now a middle school coach at Row New York started in Row New York as a high schooler, still rows, kickboxes, and is working towards a career as Youth Development Personal Sports Specialist. She gives us a terrific insider’s view into young athletes because she’s been working with these kids for years and because at 22 she’s close to their age. We talk about middle school girls leaving sports too frequently, her methods to prevent that, nutrition for athletes and models, and what it’s like to row in New York waterways.

Bryce Wettstein is a professional skateboarder and 2019 USA National Champion for Women's Park format. This summer will be the first time skateboarding is in the Olympics and Bryce is on Team USA Skateboarding with a shot at skating Park in Tokyo. Bryce travels a lot to compete, keeps up with school, surfs, plays volleyball, and writes songs on her ukulele. She’s been skating since she was very young and even has a little, wooden bowl in her backyard. We talk creativity, details of the sport, language, goals, equal pay, tricks, music, and art.

Sabre fencer Dagmara Wozniak is a two time Olympian – London in 2012 and Rio in 2016, where she won a team bronze medal. After recent ankle surgery she is now actively training and competing to make the Tokyo2020 Olympic team. Dagmara is 2018 Pan Am Championship gold medalist and 2015 Pan Am Games Gold Medalist. She also speaks at schools about body positivity and determination. She inspires with stories of rehab, Lindsey Vonn documentaries, winning well, strength training, whoop, and how sports is like art.

Jacqie McWilliams Commissioner of the CIAA spent nine years at the NCAA, managing NCAA championships. She was a student-athlete at Hampton University where she was a champion basketball and volleyball player. Jacqie earned a BA in Psychology from Hampton University and a Masters degree in Sports Management and Administration from Temple University. She currently serves on the board for Women Leaders in College Sports, NCAA Board Ad Hoc Committee for Cultural Diversity, and NCAA Board of Governors Federal and State Legislation Working Group. We talk about losing, managing work, physical health, spiritual health, and being a mother, her influences growing up, history, not everything is an emergency, having a great team and great advisors.

Christina Vassallo, curator and arts administrator, just named Executive Director of Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia. Christina is also an avid cyclist with Type 1 diabetes. For the past six years she’s been the ED of Spaces Gallery in Cleveland, Ohio. This Fast Track consists of excerpts about her diabetes, bike commuting, and bike touring. Hear Her Sports is long-form interviews with female athletes & women in sports breaking boundaries, speaking up and living with power & confidence.

Katie Visco ran across Australia. 2200 miles, more than three months, a marathon plus each day. Her husband Henley Phillips pedaled a bicycle loaded up with 350 pounds of gear, food, and water making it the first ever bicycle-supported transcontinental run across any country. In 2009, Katie became the 2nd youngest and 13th woman to run across America. While make that trip from Boston to San Diego, she also spoke to more than 200 audiences encouraging people to go for their big dreams. We talk about having a life purpose, letting the next best decision manage big projects, the huge value of telling stories, water, climate, and taking care of the planet.