几十年来，女性体育一直被迫证明自己的价值。人们会看吗？球迷会坐满看台吗？品牌会投资吗？
For decades, women’s sports were asked to prove themselves. Would people watch? Would fans fill the stands? Would brands invest?
如今，我们已经知道了答案。WNBA和NWSL等职业女子体育联赛正蓬勃发展。
Today, we know the answer. Professional women’s sports leagues like the WNBA and the NWSL are booming.
但在庆祝女性体育最高级别赛事取得繁荣发展的同时，我们也应该追问：有多少女孩因为没有机会参加体育运动，而永远无法发现自己的潜能？
But as we celebrate what is happening at the highest levels of women’s sports, we should be asking how many girls will never discover what they are capable of because they never got the chance to play.
根据女性体育基金会首次发布的《WSF体育报告》，在从未参加过有组织体育运动的8至18岁女孩中，超过一半（54%）表示自己希望参加。
According to the Women’s Sports Foundation’s inaugural WSF Sport Report, more than half (54%) of girls ages eight to 18 who have never played organized sports say they want to.
在这些女孩中，有一个孩子或许会发现她热爱的运动。她可能成为未来的队长、教练或奥运选手，甚至有望夺冠。大多数人不会成为职业运动员，但这不应成为衡量她们所获机会是否重要的标准。体育运动能够影响健康状况、自信心、领导力和归属感，而这些收获在比赛结束后仍会持续很长时间。
Somewhere among those girls is a child who could discover the sport she loves. A future captain. A coach. An Olympian. Maybe even a champion. Most will never become professional athletes, nor should that determine whether their opportunity mattered. Sports can shape health outcomes, confidence, leadership, and a sense of belonging that lasts well after competition ends.
但在她有机会亲自探索之前，我们谁也无法知道，体育运动能在女孩身上激发怎样的潜能。
But none of us can know what sports might unlock in a girl until she gets the opportunity to find out.
作为女性体育基金会的受托人，我非常关注一名运动员登上世界最高级别舞台之前很久所发生的一切。因此，基金会最新的研究在当下显得格外重要。研究结果告诉我们，女性体育在哪些领域蓬勃发展，哪些障碍依然存在，以及我们接下来应重点关注什么。
As a Women’s Sports Foundation Trustee, I care deeply about what happens long before an athlete reaches the world’s biggest stages. That is why the foundation’s new research feels so important at this moment. Our findings show us where women’s sports are thriving, where barriers remain, and where we need to focus next.
最重要的发现之一，是女孩的兴趣与她们参与运动的机会之间存在脱节。女孩们希望参与体育运动，但仍有太多人未能真正走上赛场。WSF的报告还显示，女孩开始参与体育运动后，她们的家庭在女孩体育运动上的支出高于在男孩体育运动上的支出。问题不在于女孩们是否感兴趣，而在于我们是否为她们创造了足够多的机会，让这种兴趣转化为实际行动。
One of the biggest takeaways is the disconnect between girls’ interest and their opportunity to play. Girls want to participate, but too many still are not getting into the game. And the WSF’s report reveals that when they do, families are spending more on their sports than they are on boys’. The question is not whether girls are interested. It is whether we are creating enough opportunities for that interest to become participation.
而让女孩参与体育运动只是开始。我们还必须给她们理由，让她们坚持下来。
And getting girls into sports is only the beginning. We have to give them reasons to stay.
该报告还指出，青少年群体中存在明显的归属感差距。在年龄最小的儿童中，80%的女孩和男孩都认为体育运动“适合像我这样的人”。但在青少年中，女孩持这种观点的比例低于男孩。
The report also points to a belonging gap that is evident among teens. Among the youngest children, 80% of both girls and boys say sports are “for someone like me.”Among teens, girls are less likely than boys to say the same.
女孩在八岁时并不需要别人说服她们体育运动适合自己。我们需要确保，随着青少年时期压力的增加，体育环境不会让她们产生怀疑，从而质疑自己是否还属于这里。我亲身经历过当一个女孩获得第一次机会时会发生什么。
Girls do not need to be convinced that sports are for them when they are eight. We need to make sure that, as pressures mount during the teen years, the sports environment does not give them reasons to question whether they still belong. I know personally what can happen when a girl gets that first opportunity.
我大约在12岁时开始练习田径。当时并没有什么宏伟的计划，也没想过要成为职业运动员或奥运冠军。我只是一个有机会尝试新鲜事物的孩子，发现了自己的潜能，而周围的人也为我的兴趣提供了成长的空间。
I started running track around 12 years old. There was no grand plan that I would become a professional athlete or an Olympic champion. I was a kid who got the chance to try something, discovered what I was capable of, and had people around me who gave that interest room to grow.
那个机会最终将我带到了哈佛大学，在那里我一边参加比赛，一边学习神经生物学和全球健康，并最终站上了奥运会的领奖台。一路走来，体育运动不仅塑造了我作为运动员的一面，也塑造了我的人格，让我看到了赛道之外的人生可能性。每个女孩都理应拥有机会，去探索属于自己的未来。
That opportunity ultimately took me to Harvard, where I competed and studied neurobiology and global health, and eventually to the Olympic podium. Along the way, sports helped shape not only the athlete I became, but the person I became and the possibilities I saw for my life beyond the track. Every girl deserves the opportunity to find out where hers might lead.
没有哪位运动员是独自完成这段旅程的。在每一位征战世界顶级赛场的女性运动员背后，都有多年来获得的参与机会、教练指导、资源支持，以及那些不断强化她“属于这里”这一信念的人们。
No athlete makes that journey alone. Behind every woman competing inside the world’s biggest arenas are years of access, coaching, resources, and people who reinforced that she belonged.
这条路径在每一个阶段都至关重要。在《女性体育基金会（WSF）体育报告》中接受调查的行业领袖们绝大多数认为，职业体育领域取得了进步。但在大学阶段，情况却截然不同——这是人才培养链条中唯一一个认为“进步者少于倒退者”的环节。这种反差应当引起我们的重视。
And that path matters at every level. Industry leaders surveyed for the WSF Sport Report overwhelmingly see progress at the professional level. But the picture changes at college, the only part of the pipeline where more say progress has declined than improved. That contrast should get our attention.
大学体育是通往职业和奥运赛事的关键桥梁。随着大学体育在运动员报酬、收入分成以及姓名、形象和肖像权（NIL）机会等方面经历历史性变革，现在所做的决定将有助于决定谁能从这个新时代中受益。
College sports are a critical bridge to professional and Olympic competition. As college athletics undergo historic changes to athlete compensation, revenue sharing, and name, image, and likeness opportunities, decisions being made now will help determine who benefits from this new era.
我们不能一边庆祝终于抵达目的地，一边任由通往目的地的道路越来越窄。
We cannot celebrate the destination while allowing the road to it to narrow.
就在这样一个意义重大的变革时刻，WSF体育报告指出，围绕一项曾帮助创造今日机会的保护机制，存在着令人不安的脱节。在《教育平权法》第九条推动女孩和女性体育发生变革五十多年后，接受调查的女孩中仍有79%从未听说过该法案。她们的父母中，也有超过一半未曾听说过。
And at a moment of such significant change, the WSF Sport Report points to a troubling disconnect around one of the protections that helped make today’s opportunities possible. More than five decades after Title IX helped transform sports for girls and women, 79% of girls surveyed have never heard of it. More than half of their parents haven’t either.
机会可以由前人传承而来，但关于机会如何争取而来的认知，不能凭想当然。缺乏这种认知，下一代又如何保护那些她们甚至可能意识不到自己拥有的权利？
Opportunity can be inherited, but the knowledge of how it was won cannot be assumed. Without that knowledge, how can the next generation protect the rights they may not even know they have?
尤其令人担忧的是，在接受该报告调查的业内人士中，近一半将《教育平权法》第九条相关保障的倒退或执法力度的削弱，视为女孩和女性在体育领域继续取得进展的最大威胁。
That lack of awareness is especially striking when nearly half of the industry leaders surveyed for the report identify Title IX rollbacks or weakened enforcement as the greatest threat to continued progress for girls and women in sports.
我们的责任不只是享受已经为我们打开的门，更在于确保这些门继续敞开，并为我们身后的女孩打开更多扇门。
Our responsibility is not simply to benefit from the doors that have been opened. It is to make sure they remain open, and to open more for the girls coming behind us.
几十年来，人们要求女运动员证明，对她们所从事的体育项目进行投入是可行的。她们已经证明了这一点。如今，我们有机会在这一成果之上，为下一代建设更加美好的未来。
For decades, women athletes were asked to prove that investment in their sports could work. They have. Now, we have the chance to build on that success for the next generation.
这意味着营造一种体育文化，让更多女孩能够参与其中，找到属于自己的位置，了解自己的权利，并发现体育事业将为自己带来怎样的可能。
That means creating a sports culture where more girls can get in the game, find a place where they belong, understand their rights, and discover where sports might take them.
此刻最伟大的遗产，不仅在于女性体育已经取得了多大的发展，更在于我们将如何携手合作，让更多女孩有机会发现自己能够走多远。
The greatest legacy of this moment will not only be how far women’s sports have come. It will be how we work together to give more girls the chance to find out how far they can go.