Sports Organization Launches Non-Profit Focused On Female Athletics
Kynisca Innovation Hub aims to redefine women’s sports with female-focused research and training
Women make up 38.4% of total athletes in the U.S., yet only 6% of sports science data is female-focused. Michele Kang is looking to change that.
On July 27, Kang announced the launch of Kynisca Innovation Hub, an enterprise of Kang’s Kynisca Sports International Ltd. With a world-class team of scientists, academics and engineers, Kynisca Innovation Hub is committed to expanding research on women’s athletic training, creating an unprecedented database of information on female health.
Kang, a businesswoman, philanthropist and investor, says it’s time women’s training is built on data from female-focused research, not male-focused.
“We have only begun to unlock the potential of female athletes,” Kang said. “We will understand women’s physiology and biology and train athletes according to supporting data. Kynisca Innovation Hub will become a pioneer of female performance research – so we can stop training women as if they are simply small men – and unlock their true potential.”
Kang, who owns female soccer teams Washington Spirit, Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, and London City Lionesses, has been involved in women’s sports for decades and was the first woman of color to own a National Women’s Soccer League team.
A Commitment to the Cause
Named after Cynisca of Sparta, the first female Olympic champion, Kynisca Sports International is the first multi-team international organization created for women’s soccer. The organization supports female athletes with state-of-the-art facilities and coaching staff, as well as innovative sports science through the Kynisca Innovation Hub.
Dawn Scott, KIH’s executive director and Theresa McDonnell, KIH’s chief executive officer, will lead the hub and its four main features: a consumer app, coaching platform, data analysis platform and website.
“Michele’s unprecedented commitment to advancing women’s sports is providing the long-needed resources to close the 6% gap and finally develop training methods to optimize female athletic performance,” McDonnell said. “The Innovation Hub results will have a massive global impact on all sports and all levels of play.”
Scott says she’s never seen such a commitment to the world of female athletics in her entire career.
“Having worked as a practitioner in elite women’s sport for over 20 years, this is the first time I have received support of this scale, both in terms of level of investment and, most importantly, understanding the need to focus on training females as females,” Scott said. “I am honored to be part of Michele’s vision and excited to be working with our world-leading experts to develop the global blueprint for female athlete support.”
Kynisca Innovation Hub has also announced its first athlete ambassadors: World Cup-winner Samantha Mewis and Active Duty Air Force Colonel Rachel Ott Chancey.
This initiative has implications for fitness professionals and their female clients. As research expands on women’s athletic training and health, fitness pros may gain access to more accurate, female-specific data. This will enable them to design more effective, tailored training programs, better understand female physiology, and utilize new tools and resources specifically developed for women’s fitness.
By addressing the current knowledge gap in sports science, this project touches on how the industry approaches women’s training, potentially leading to improved performance outcomes and overall health for female athletes and fitness enthusiasts at all levels.