Inside the game-changing $50m investment in women’s sport science

It is a major statement of intent but one Scott is confident of delivering on. She has been at the forefront of this space for more than two decades having studied sports science and nutrition in the late Nineties then taken a “female lens” to it. “Throughout my degree, we had one lecture on female physiology but it wasn’t aligned to the female athlete,” says Scott, who has also worked with the England and Great Britain women’s teams. “It means you’re looking at the demands on players without the underlying understanding of female physiology and the differences between males and females, the impact of hormones and menstrual cycles.”

Tracking the periods of US players was deemed key to their 2019 World Cup win and one element of KIH helps sportswomen around the world, whether amateur or professional, to do similar. The organisation’s app, which is free and is in the process of being translated into more languages, allows users to log their menstrual cycle characteristics as well as link to wearable fitness trackers to include details of sleep, heart rate and so on.

“Our mission is to revolutionise how we support and train female athletes, with education and innovation,” says Scott. “We’re looking at athletic females across the whole life cycle, from puberty to perimenopause to menopause, and from recreational through to elite sport.

“Before 2018-19, players with debilitating menstrual cycle symptoms would think: ‘It’s just my period, I’ll get on with it.’ Now they are employing strategies to help, nutrition to reduce symptoms and so on, so they can recover better, train better and play better.”

As well as helping increase the knowledge base of female physiology and how it relates to sport, the app also has a research element and will be used to help close the sports science gender gap. Take the menstrual cycle, for example: most research to date has been conducted on the general female population but the app will allow data to be collected from athletes and analyze how they specifically are affected.

Technology has enabled huge strides in sports science in the past 20 years – as Scott says, “it’s night and day” from when she first started – and is now being harnessed to build more female-specific knowledge. That can only help sportswomen reach their true potential.