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In a Just Women’s Sports exclusive release, women’s health and wellness startup Sequel announced an agreement with Stanford Athletics to provide Stanford athletes with free Sequel Spiral Tampons through the 2024/25 academic year.

This is the first time a college athletic program has entered an official collaboration with a tampon brand in NCAA history.

A Division I school, Stanford’s history as a women’s sports powerhouse runs deep. With broad representation on both past and present USWNTs — including superstars Tierna Davidson, Sophia Smith, Naomi Girma, Catarina Macario, Kelley O’Hara, Christen Press, and Julie Foudy — the Cardinal won the NCAA women’s soccer championship in 2011, 2017, and 2019.

Women’s basketball has also been an area of strength for Stanford, picking up NCAA championships in 1990, 1992, and 2021. Through the years, the school has produced elite WNBA talent like Cam Brink, Nneka Ogwumike, Lexie Hull, Haley Jones, Karlie Samuelson, Candice Wiggins, and Jennifer Azzi under the guidance of now-retired NCAA coaching legend Tara Vanderveer.

“We are committed to supporting the health and well-being of all our athletes,” Stanford assistant athletics director Sarah Lyons told JWS. “This collaboration offers an important resource to our female athletes, allowing them to concentrate on excelling in their sport.”

Sequel is the brainchild of Stanford-educated engineers Greta Meyer and Amanda Calabrese. As former high-level athletes frustrated with the inadequacy of conventional tampons, the co-founders drew on their competitive experiences to inform their reinvention.

“Whether we were competing in our respective sports or making our way through the Stanford School of Engineering, Amanda and I had no patience for tampons that leaked,” Meyer, a former DI lacrosse player at Stanford, said. “Because we were unable to find one that was suitable for peak performance, we committed to creating our own.”

Sequel’s relationship with Stanford goes beyond its co-founders degrees, however, as a shared class at the Palo Alto institution actually gave rise to the pair’s original business idea.

“This collaboration marks a full-circle moment for us, as our tampon re-design began as a class project during our senior year at the university,” Calabrese said. “Just five years later, the Sequel Spiral Tampon is FDA approved as a medical device, available nationwide and now, available to Stanford athletes.

The first significant tampon redesign in more than 80 years, the Sequel Spiral Tampon features a proprietary structure engineered to absorb fluids more evenly and efficiently.

According to Sequel’s website, most tampons are fit with linear channels drawing fluid down in a way that can cause leakage, while the Sequel Spiral’s channels are wrapped around the tampon, creating a longer flow path designed to increase absorption and prevent leakage.

“As the winningest college in existence, Stanford’s collegiate athletes are the ultimate peak performers and we are thrilled to be providing them with the tampon we wish we’d had on game day,” added Calabrese.