Welcome to the Wrap, for weekly podcast covering women's sports news Bears.

What have we got around the grounds this week?

Jess Denson has broken the Australian marathon record.

Huge.

That's huge, by about nine seconds.

I want to say, wasn't that much?

Maybe seven?

What a boss?

It was a number of seconds.

It was Billie seconds.

The Hobot Hurricanes have finished the wbb L season on top of the ladder and Ozzie Seven's women got some revenge on the Kiwi's and Tess Crown in Cape Town.

I'm a bit excited about that.

I watched the semi last night before I went to bed, and then this morning when I was cheating to dad, Dad was like, they won and I was like, oh my, I watched the semi I think because of the new shorter format.

I mean the next game after a semi final is a final, so I should have known.

But you know, I just was like, Holy moly, I forgot.

Do we need to cut that from the podcast?

Leave it in authentic self.

For the key story, we discuss a new partnership between IVF Australia and the Australian Netball Players Association, which aims to respond to players reported concerns about fertility health.

We've got the Women's Sports Fan Club teas coming back.

You've got one right sitting right behind you.

I'm wearing mine.

They're coming back December fifteenth.

Is there a different colorway as well?

Heard it here first?

Yeah, don't tell your friends, but only your friends, only your friends there.

It might be a darker version for those people that can't be trusted in a light color.

That's us looking at myself in the mirror.

That's definitely you and I.

They're coming back.

So produce a sof pop link in the show notes to drop your email and to subscribe to get first access.

My name is Chloe Dalton.

I'm joined every week on the show by my co host Bez.

We're recording on Gadagland.

Let's take a look around the ground.

The sevens.

Oh, how good.

I'm just stoked.

I'm really stoked for them.

The Aussie women's seventh fee team have put last week's defeats in New Zealand behind them to defeat the Black Ferns twenty six to twelve in the Cape Town Sevens final, after claiming commanding victories over France, Canada, Japan and the USA over the weekend.

The Oozes hit the ground running, scoring inside the first minute through Heidi Dennis with a solid restart, seeing Thousies maintain the pressure and Teagan Levi score their second.

Talk to me about how important the restart is.

Well, has always been, but has it become even more in sevens?

Yeah, so if you haven't watched sevens before, it's a drop kick for a restart and a conversion, and the drop kick has to go past the ten meter line.

But if you're a good kicker, you can drop it pretty much right on that ten meda line or you know, twelve, twelve to fifteen meters.

Your teammates can get a full run up, so by the time they get that, they're at full speed launching into the air to try and tap the ball back towards you and compete against the opponent, and as the opponent trying to catch a drop kick because you're static, it's actually quite it can be quite disconcerting with people running full speed knowing that they get the chance to launch into the air and you've just got to jump.

So a lot of times defensively will set up a podlift.

I've gone into a lot of detail here.

I like it a lot of the time.

They'll set up a podlift.

People might have seen content of Maddie Ashby and facing at Long doing it together, which is they're crazy strong, but where one player will kind of hold the shorts under the bom of the other player and lift them up into the air.

If you can win it back, you then get possession, and possession is gold in rugby sevens.

It really is because the game kind of lends itself to if you've got possession, there's a good chance you're going to score.

Yes, and it does it often is tit for tat Yes, but not so much in this final.

It was a bit of a replay of last week.

So just flip but in reverse.

Yeah, love that.

How good.

New Zealand looked to find momentum when Kelsey Tonetti scored after several Ossie mistakes, only for the try to be disallowed due to a forward pass, prompting Bell and Nassa to score the Ossie's third and give them a nineteen nil halftime lead.

Maddie leve I produced another long range effort to score Australia's fourth and a critical score after halftime with five minutes remaining the key.

He's finally got on the board through Tonetti, with Stacy Wucker scoring in the corner two minutes later to give the defending champs a sniff of a potential comeback, but they couldn't chase down nauseously.

Massive from the girls.

Well done, great bounce back from the week before.

I agree.

In some A League news, the Central Coast Mariners have snapped a three game losing street by downing the Newcastle Jets for to one in the F three derby after the showdown was pushed back twenty four hours due to heat.

She was pretty warm on the weekend.

I'm glad she was pushed back, that's for sure.

Jets captain Lauren Allen put the Visitors ahead inside twenty two minutes, making it goals in back to back games for the skipper, but Anelys ras Mussen restored parody for the Mariners before she was added again with seventeen minutes of regulation remaining.

After combining with star teammate Isabel Gomez, substitutes Tamar Levin and Eliza Familton scored twice in six minutes to compete the derby route after losing goalkeeper Sarah Langman injury.

In other A League results, Britain Raw have defeated Adelaide United to three to one, but may have lost captain ta Meeki Yallop in the process with suspected leg injury.

That's not ideal, That's not fun.

The Wanderers in Sydney FC, you've played out of neil or draw in the first Sydney derby of the season.

Melbourne City waited until the eighty six minute to defeat the Wellington Phoenix one zip.

And Caverria United have defeated Melvin Victory in Melbourne for the first time in nine years.

A bit more football news to Tillies finished their Asian Cup prep in style with a two nil victory over New Zealand in Adelaide.

Sam Kerr made her first Matilda's start at home in seven hundred and thirty six days the countdowns.

Samas just got all of the.

Caps all the Countdowns and of course played a part in Australia's opening goal.

Chelsea striker played a pinpoint ball in behind to Hailey Rasso before the ball came perfectly to an on rushing a line of Kennedy, who made no mistake and gave the Tillies a one nil halftime lead.

The game slowed in the second half until the seventieth minute, when Steph Cally whipped in a corner that found its way into Hailey Rasso's path.

Razso struck.

It's sweetly at the top of a half volleyme curled it into the back of the net to double Australia's lead.

I'm getting excited for that.

Yeah, very much.

So it was good to see Alana Kennedy score.

She looked pretty pumped.

Yeah, she had a good one.

She's had a rough couple of weeks, I reckon, so it was nice to see her finishing something positive.

She obviously got sent off and then didn't play.

Yes, so it was good to see Elana on the score sheet.

She usually scores with her head, so it was good to see it come off the boot.

Oh we don't need to talk about this next one.

Oh, Chelsea have suffered their first defeat.

Oh gosh, another Sam Kok countdown.

In the Women's Super League in five and eighty five days more numbers.

After going down in a shock one, Meal lost to Everton at home.

Everton won the game through a twelve minute goal from Honoka Hayashi, who tucked in a low finish at the far post as she met Tony Payne's right wing cross.

Chelsea mounted attack after attacking response having eighteen corners, well, Everton had none.

WHOA, that's a lot of corner side club were able to hang on from me or victory.

That is what sometimes frustrates me with football.

Yeah, I hear eighteen corners to zip.

I haven't seen I haven't watched the game.

I haven't seen the actual stats.

But yeah, sometimes you can have all the shots on goal and still lose.

Yeah.

Wow.

Chelsea slips six points behind league leaders Manchester City, who are three no winners at Leicester with twelve games remaining this season, leaving Sonya bomb Pasta's side with a significant ground to make up if they're to extend the club's streak of six successive WSL titles.

Hey, our final episode of the next for the year is coming out on Thursday.

By the way, how exciting can women's sport, fashion and beauty coexist?

I was deep in a fashion tunnel.

You were hesitant about recording this one, weren't you?

Yeah, because fashion is not my thing.

Fashion, but you love women's sports.

Merch so you absolutely did come to the party.

Yeah, the word fashion probably scares me a little bit.

Yeah, fair, But that was great, really good chat, really interesting cross sections there in regards to not just fashion is in what we wear, but fashion is in the whole idea of it and how that is showing up showing itself up in women's sport.

Yeah, I like that.

In a bit of cricket, the Sydney Sixers have secured a thrilling one run win over the Adelaide Strikers to book their first finals appearance in.

Three years out of sixes.

Wow, they've had a bit of a dry spell, haven't they.

I'm not sure we're going to talk about it here, but no we're not, so I'm going to say it.

Did you see Elisee Perry chop the ball onto the stumps but the bales didn't come off, so she literally hit it well, bounced into the base of the stumps, but the bars didn't come off her back.

Yeah, biles didn't come off, so she's not out.

Play on, play on.

It was hilarious and then the we could keep it like went up and remove the bars like they're not stuck on.

Oh that's funny.

It was great.

I like that.

I'm here for that.

Facing the Strikers in a straight shootout for a spot in the finals, Elise Perry looked to have all but wrapped up the Sixers playoff Berth when smashing her way to one hundred and eleven Wow, the best score of her WBBL career, to see her side finish the innings four for one seventy three.

I love that.

She's just getting better.

Fine wine, Elise Perry.

But a late surge from the Strikers, led by Bridget Patterson, meant the game went down to the y, with Adelaide side requiring three runs for a win off the final ball.

That was until Adelaide's Sophie ecclestone was run out as she chased a second run that would have sent the match to a super overhanding the Sixers victory or brutal brutal.

In other WBBL results, the Perth Scorches defeated the Brisbane Heat by seven wickets to finish the regular season in third, and the Melbourne Stars finished in fourth after a rain affected win over the Sydney Thunder.

There's a bit of silliness in the big match that we need to.

Discuss more silliness.

More silliness, tell me about the silliness.

We're in Adelaide during the innings break.

So the break between innings.

Thank you for the sext place.

Some might say it's the innings break.

When you have the break between innings between the Strikers and the Hurricanes match.

A ball in really rolled onto the pitch right so, umpires, this was wild.

Sorry, I was like, where we go?

Yes, this was.

Wild And as it's rolled onto the pitch, it was an The Strikers were warming up state the field.

The ball got lodged under the roller the rolling the pitch and created a hole in the.

And they called the game oft, didn't they?

Because of it?

Cricket Strikes statement said as a result, the pitch conditions would change significantly, and after consultation between the match referee and the umpires, that were considered unreasonable to expect the Hurricanes to bat in conditions that were materially different than those the Strikers had experience.

As a result, the match was abandoned and the points split.

Where was the hole of the ball?

Right in the middle, right.

In the middle.

I think I feel like I saw a photo or something.

I think in my head it was like near the boundary and I was like, that's ridiculous as a pitch like the pitchy Okay, So that kind of makes sense, doesn't it, because someone would probably roll an ankle or something on that right.

Yeah, all the ball would bounce, would bounce and see you later un'teven bouncing.

Yeah, crazy wbl It's had a few little side stories that are not so cricket related.

In basketball.

You see capitals of stolen victory In the final moments in a thrilling seventy six to seventy five win against the Geelong Venom.

Both sides exchange buckets in the second quarter courtesy of Charli Hill and Sarah Blitzov's dominating the paint, and Geelong led thirty five to thirty two of the main break, But as Geelong led by six points with fifty five seconds left, Charli Hill missed a crucial free throw with ten seconds remaining to seal the victory.

Right, that's brutal.

So it's two seconds left as the Caps trailed by two points, Nicole Munger received the ball on the three point line.

She drained the bucket and on the next play, Venom star Mackenzie Herme Homes turned the ball over, gifting the Capitol's victory.

Out talked about how hard it is standing at that free throw line, knowing the games on the line.

It's a lot of pressure.

I kind of yeah.

As I was reading that, I was kind of thinking about like a conversion in sevens, kind of that same level.

Because technically, there's no external factors that should impact your ability to sink it.

It's just a routine mental thing.

A free throw youll execution.

It's a skill execution thing.

But the reason I brought up that seventh thing is there was a coach I always said to me, like a kick should never win or lose a game.

It's about everything that happens before that.

I don't know if that applies to a free throw as well.

I think it does, you know, let's make it that way.

Yeah.

In other WNBL results this week, the Bendigo Spirit have made it six in a row with a seven point win over the south Side Flyers.

The Townsville Fire torched the Sydney Flames ninety three to sixty.

Ou Bit impacted by injury and a couple of other things.

I know, Laura nickoson one of their star players.

Wasn't there a couple of injuries?

Going to the Times going on with the.

Flames the Perth links down the south Side Flyers by seventeen In.

Some athletics news, this is huge massive.

Common Wealth champion Jessica Stenson has broken Janet Divers national marathon record at the Valencia or some might say Valencia.

I was waiting you kind of got halfway.

Yeah, it was like me when I was in Spain recently and you.

Were deciding whether to say see with a or not.

Well, no, when I was saying thank you.

Excuse me?

What grat It's kind of like when you asked Fred, what noise is a snake make?

That's actually how I should have done it.

Gratsia Valentthia to become the fastest Australian woman in history over the marathon distance.

Man, that's cool to say that.

Say that to people all the time.

Danson produced a masterful run on one of the world's quickest courses, finishing fifth in two hours, twenty one minutes and twenty five seconds, just like nine seconds off the previous record of twenty one before.

How good.

The performance also shattered her own personal best by more than a minute on track for the record throughout the entirety of the race of thirty eight year old Stenson.

Marathon really is an older person's sport, isn't it.

You like you get better at it?

Yeah, isn't that endurance sport?

Like what in durance sports and age is a real correlation, there, isn't it.

I'm just actually busy working out what that time is for per kilometer.

Okay, you keep doing the math.

Thirty eight year old Stenson surged through the final kilometers and crossed the line with a raw delivering a breakthrough moment in a career already marup by three Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games success.

Oh cute.

This is what Stener said after.

Hey, she said, I just got off the phone to SANEI that she called me right away and we just cried.

She was so happy for me even it was so nice to connect with her after the race.

That's beautiful.

I love that.

I'm so grateful and that for her and that record that she'd set.

When there was one kilometer left to go, I was thinking of her and trying to squeeze as much as I could out of myself, knowing what was possible to achieve.

I have the highest level of respect for her, so she was there with me in a positive way.

That's beautiful, beautiful.

Meanwhile, Isabel bat Doyle finished seventh in the women running two twenty three thirty five.

Well.

Genevieve Gregson, in her first race only five months postpartum, finished twenty second in two twenty eight to fifty one.

It's about a three minutes eighteen seconds per kilometer pace, which is really gross and really fast for fortit.

Yeah, crazy little bit of on in my mouth.

That's yucky.

In some river ruse.

We've swapped stories, haven't we.

We do this sometimes.

I don't even know how we did that bit of river use.

The Australian River Rus have finished fourth overall the twenty twenty five World Whitewater Rafting Championships in Malaysia, taking home three World Championships medals and fourth overall in the open women's category.

The team finished with a silver medal in the downriver category, a bronze in the slalom event, and a bronze in the sprint event.

That's why I got your story because I had slalom in there.

You did that on purpose, hey, but shout out to the river.

Ruse.

I know the big fans of tefapp on the podcast and massive congrats.

Well done.

In some speed.

News speed gap data, this is I'm a full blown nerd for numbers.

This is cool data.

Yeah, so motorsport, we're talking aboutusport.

We're talking motor We're talking the speed gap between your hosts c because it's large.

It is a large gap.

The gap between my brain and my mouth today is a large gap too.

So following the inaugural FIA Extreme H World Cup, which was run earlier this year, the league has registered the closest men's and women's performance results ever recorded in any top ten motorsport.

This is really cool.

Sorry, I've said it again.

She's excited.

Across the lap time of all extreme eraces, the average gap between men's and women's drivers was just zero point three six seconds over a two minute lap.

It's tiny.

So for additional context, using the same super sector metric tracks, since Extreme EA's launched, the performance gap has closed from four point five seconds, which was in twenty twenty one, to zero point four seconds in twenty twenty five, a ninety one percent improvement which proves the power of equality based formats.

I love that, So talk to me about this extreme any classification.

They're driving the same cars, everything is regulated to be exactly the same.

So it's really just driver performance.

Yeah, totally.

And there's a male and female driver in each team, like it's all about it's all about sustainability and equality.

This is We're just big fans of the league for that reason.

Back to the time gap, so it's an average gap across the spectrum of extreme eraces, including time trial, multi car and eight car World Cup finals.

The data provides a striking demonstration of when given a level playing field.

Love this.

As you said, best equal seat time, access to the same machinery, engineering support, mentorship, and advanced technology, women can achieve comparable results to their male counterparts at the highest level of motorsports.

I want to put that on a T shirt.

Ravo, well done to Extreme E.

I don't know if I'm sick or if I just started to get a bit emotional reading that.

Gosh, I've got water in my eyes.

You do, bless.

I love how much you love equality.

I really do.

I do.

I love a quality so much and extremely.

No, that's a that's a really impressive I think improvement.

I love that it was four point five seconds in twenty twenty one and we're down point three six seconds now in twenty twenty five.

Huge result, a huge impresment like that.

Again, that's just concrete proof that if you give women the opportunity to compete at the same level with the same you know things, ingredients, then same.

Same Crazy who would have thought.

Let's take a look at the key story.

Australia's elite netballers will now have access to free fertility health checks under a new paid partnership between the Australian Netball Players Association, the ANPA and IVF for Australia.

The partnership, which is the first fertility care partnership of its kind in elite women's netball, goes beyond education.

It provides players with a fertility assessment, including a pelvic ultrasound and an overan reserve blood test, empowering players to identify and manage reproductive health challenges and focus on their future fertility.

Joe Western austral Australian Diamond and Melbourne Vixen and also the ANPA president.

She's a boss.

She's such a boss.

Well, the boss says, we spend so much time focusing on our physical and mental well being.

It's fantastic to see fertility health now recognized as part of that.

Having access to trusted medical advice and key fertility tests gives players peace of mind and knowledge to plan for the future.

The partnership responds to findings from anpa's annual well being survey, which revealed that more than half of players reported a fertility or reproductive health concern and almost ninety percent that they would undertake a fertility check.

It's actually quite amazing, really, like if they've obviously seen the data, like how often do we talk about potentially like a player's association or a sporting body doing a well being check and then you get these scary stats.

The fact that they've actually implemented this off the back of that, I think is really really positive.

That's really cool.

As players compete at early levels and stay in the game longer, thanks for advances in sports science, reproductive health as we know is now a key part of holistic athletes well being.

I think that's the key.

That it used to be that you would play, or a woman athlete would play up until a point where they decided all right, I'm going to have children now, I'm going to retire now with all of the support, there's a real opportunity for people to do that and return to the game.

I know this is slightly off topic, but I do feel like we should touch on it, and we haven't.

You and I haven't talked about this about Karen Peterson, so captain of the Blues for a number of years, seven years, She's been there for a very long time.

Has she been there since the start.

In Carlton, I'd say so, yeah.

Captain the Blues for about seven years, pregnant, stepped aside, gave away the captain seed, took time off to have a baby, has then been informed by Carlton that she won't be receiving a contract.

It's pretty brutal.

It's so brutal, and I was really surprised when I read it because we've seen huge progress in the CBA negotiations and different parental policies and pregnancy policies that are implemented in AFLW.

I kind of saw it and I was quite shocked.

So this comes to the point of does Carlton make that decision based on the way she's returned physically to the club or not, or is I mean, or if they just made an assumption that she won't be able to reach where they want her to be.

I mean, you obviously can't get into Carlton's mind and figure out why they made that decision.

But it's really interesting that I don't know if she's been doing training with them, but what are they basing that on?

Is it her age?

Like it's a really nuanced and delicate topic because of the fact that she is returning from having a child.

Yeah, I just I think in my head, I probably thought there were better protections in place, like if she has come back unfit, so she should be just given birth to a child, you know, Like, what's the window of time that you give someone an opportunity to return to full fitness and rehab essentially from pregnancy and labor and birth and being a mum and breastfeeding and all those things.

Yeah, I just it didn't set a great precedent for me, I don't think, and I think a lot of people read it, and I don't think it feels a lot of athletes with confidence, because like we're obviously talking about the importance of fertility testing, but we kind of see these improvements in collected bargaining agreements that athletes feel like, Okay, I've got a little bit more contract security and financial security to be able to go away and have a baby.

But then if you come back and they're like, see you later, we're not offering you a contract.

It's not overly secure, is it.

Yeah, to play Devil's advocate here.

Sport is a brutal environment and you do have to be at your peak, and there are instances where you may be injured and you're up for contract neural and your contract's gone because you know, for whatever reason, they don't think you're going to get back, is it.

I mean, obviously, pregnancy is not an injury, although I do like to joke sometimes I call it the nine month in But you know, is that an extension of you've done your knee, your contracts up, see you later, which again is brutal, but that is the reality.

Yeah.

I just think they're quite different things.

Okay, because of it's a choice or.

The pregnancy thing.

Yeah, well I don't think it's always a choice.

Try some people get pregnant without intending to.

I just think it's really difficult because I just think it's a really unique thing in the women's game that needs to be better considered than that.

I just think, I don't know.

I think if you are expecting so much from your athletes in sport and you're asking for so much of their prime fertility, is for an athlete to then get pregnant and then be told nap, you're done.

I don't know.

I just feel like there needs to be more consideration around it.

Yep, I hear, I agree.

Anyway, that's the end of the key stories.

Sorry for the YA side tangents.

As we often do.

Let's take a look award to watch Bob's led.

Ozzie Bob sledders continue their World Cup Action and Olympic qualification this week in Lily Hummer.

The event begins Monday and runs until Sunday, and you can watch it live and free on the IBSF YouTube channel.

In WBBL, it's finals week.

With the Hobite Hurricanes already through to the Grand Final, the Scorches and Stars are set to play off for a place in the semi final, where they'll meet the Sydney Sixers to decide who goes into the final to face the Hobart Hurricanes.

Go to sixes.

The final series takes place this Tuesday and Thursday at seven to ten pm a d T, before the Big Dance gets underway and Tazzy on Saturday at seven ten pm.

You can watch all the finals live and free on Network seven.

In the A League, the Newcastle Jets will host the Prison Raw in the Women's A League this Saturday, with both sides registering just one loss each so far this season.

The match begins at two pm a DT and you can watch it live and free on ten dot Com.

In basketball, the Towns will File be looking to make it eight wins in a row and they host the third place Perth Links this Sunday.

The match begins at six thirty pm ae DT.

You can watch live and free on the nine network.

And In more football, this time in the nighttime UK time zone, it's a final round of the Women's Superly before Christmas, and Chelsea will be looking to spend the holiday season close to the top of the table when they play Brian on Sunday at eleven pma DT.

You can watch it live on ESPN through Disney Bus.

That's the wrap, See you next week.

Next week's our final wrap of the.

Year, CLO's gonna dress up a center.

I could no, she will, okay, Bye bye bye