Women’s sport in 2025: Our reflections on the year
Published
Written by Rachel Williams, Policy and Public Affairs Manager at Women in Sport.
2025, eh? What a year.
Celebrity Traitors, the baffling rise of Labubus, Katy Perry in space for some reason and ohmygod so much sport. So much.
And whilst I understand some men’s sport did in fact happen, let’s be honest, it was the women’s game that produced most of the memorable moments, the stuff we’re all still thinking about as the year comes to an end. (Also, this is a Women in Sport blog, what do you want from me?)
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If I were to give 2025 a theme, and apparently that’s what I’m about to do, it would be The Year Women’s Team Sport Came of Age. Since I joined WiS three years ago, many of the conversations about women’s team sport I’ve had would go like this: “Oh I love watching the Lionesses [long silence]”.
In 2025, absolutely not. People wanted to talk about the Lionesses winning their second Euros, obviously, but they also wanted to talk about the Red Roses winning a home World Cup. The Indian women’s cricket team doing the same. The incredible success of the Canadian rugby team (and here’s hoping they finally start to get the respect and support they deserve at home).
And of course, what I’m sure we can all agree is the greatest sporting moment of the year: Jess Fishlock scoring her first international tournament goal at Wales’ first international football tournament. No prizes for guessing which home nation I’m from.
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That’s not to say there weren’t some amazing individual sporting moments too. Pauline Ferrand Prevot becoming the first ever French woman to win the Tour de France Femmes. Morgan Lake clearing 2m in the high jump, the first time a British woman has done that.
Balvinder Sopal showing as much resilience as any professional sports star to survive a record five dance offs and show women everywhere how much joy dancing can bring (yes, I’m making the case for Strictly Come Dancing as sport, fight me).
Faith Kipyegon getting painfully close to being the first woman to break the four-minute mile barrier – and, by the way, her brilliant, predominantly male, team of pacers for showing what allyship in sport truly looks like. Honestly, Google the videos of the last 100m; I defy you not to well up.
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And yet.
Let’s not pretend that 2025 was all sunshine and rainbows for women’s sport.
2025 was also the year that the Lionesses, as the Three Lions have before them, had to defend their Black players against hideous racism from alleged fans. As our biggest piece of research for the year – Black Girls and Sport: A Breakup Story – showed, sport is still not a place that Black girls and women feel that they belong. We shouldn’t accept any of this. We mustn’t accept any of this.
It was the year, or perhaps more accurately yet another year, where vicious scrutiny of women’s bodies sometimes got louder than the commentary on the amazing things they achieved. And of course we can’t win. Either we’re too big and bulky (ask literally any rugby player, weightlifter, rower, or indeed woman who has even picked up a weight) or too small and girly (ask Pauline Ferrand Prevot, who didn’t even have time to put the Tour de France’s iconic yellow winner’s jersey on before the criticism of her body started, or Wales second row Georgia Evans, abused for *checks notes* wearing ribbons in her hair).
None of this is new, none of it is surprising – certainly not in a world where the literal President of the United States thinks referring to women as ‘piggy’ is totally fine and cool – but goodness me it’s exhausting. And, of course, absolutely unacceptable.
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It was the year in which female tennis stars shone a light on the abuse that sportswomen face, online and offline, every day. Katie Boulter let the media into her mentions to expose the horrible online abuse she’s subject to every time she, or her partner, step onto the court. Emma Raducanu was literally stalked whilst playing a match. We should applaud their bravery for speaking out and prioritising their safety whilst being absolutely bloody furious that they have to.
And it feels trivial in this context but it would be remiss of me not to say a brief word on Halo, Sky Sports’ ill-advised attempt to be down with the girlies and hot girl walk their way into the matcha foam of the women’s sport fan market? (That is the worst sentence I’ve ever written, I’m so sorry.) I’m not sure I can say anything that funnier people haven’t already said, so I’ll just say this: if you wouldn’t say it to a male audience, don’t say it to a female audience. Truly, it is that simple.
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