Black Girls Swim, Bike, Run
Black Women in Sport Foundation Partners with USA Triathlon and Coeur Sports to Offer Triathlon Training Grant to African American Women
[Philadelphia, PA] In honor of Black History Month (BHM) 365 and in the spirit of social justice, Black Women in Sport Foundation (BWSF) continues to create pathways for representation of African American women in non-traditional sports. To this end, Black Women in Sport Foundation has collaborated with USA Triathlon, and Coeur Sports to create the 2021 BWSF Power Up Triathlon Training Grant: Coached Training Program.
BWSF is offering these one-time training grants to novice and amateur Black women athletes who are interested in training for and participating in the 2021 Philadelphia Women's Triathlon on July 11, 2021. The goal of this program is to support development of underrepresented athletes in the sport of triathlon. Everyone’s story should be heard.
Black girls do swim, bike, and run but their participation in triathlon is low. Overall, 5% of triathletes are African American. BWSF, USA Triathlon, and Coeur Sports are working together to change this for the better. The two latter organizations are providing funding and training resources for the grantees.
The grant project is important because it opens access to the sport. “I am personally very excited for Black Women in Sport to launch this Triathlon Grant program. This program directly pushes us forward in our mission to create opportunities for black women to participate in sports where they are normally underrepresented,” said Kayla Stuckey, BWSF Interim Executive Director.
“I am thankful to our sponsors, Coeur Sports and USA Triathlon as well as Nnenna Akotaobi for generating the idea of this program. It has excitingly come to fruition, and I am excited to help cultivate the program so that it continues for years to come, and grows to reach more participants and generally create more awareness around the sport of triathlon,” added Stuckey.
Kebby Holden, Founder & Designer, Coeur Sports said, “All the content and capability is there to educate people on how to get into the sport but it isn’t necessarily easily available or marketed to a whole range of folks who might learn to love the sport. This project is about obvious representation, outreach and action.”
The grants are truly designed to remove barriers to participation. Applicants need not have equipment, gear or experience to be eligible. Grantees will be supplied with identified supports needed for training and event competition.
This agency collaboration is borne of the recent social justice movement.
“For Coeur, this came about from the social justice movement that rose up after the death of George Floyd,” said Holden. “Coeur has always been a company about inclusion, equality and the belief that everybody has a story that someone else can learn from and be inspired by. We want women of all colors, educations, shapes, ages, backgrounds to share ALL their stories.”
Holden added, “After June and the protests and calls for change and (inner searching), we knew we needed to be way more PROACTIVE about reaching out to help women get involved in the sport. Since our lens is women and sport, we searched and found the BWSF and thought we’d found an amazing organization to partner where we could do some real outreach to get more black women and girls involved in triathlon.”
Organizers are optimistic that there will be enough interest from Black women in becoming triathletes that the grants will continue beyond this inaugural year.
“We hope that Philly will be a pilot program that, if it goes well and is scalable, as we are trying to make it, it will become a template that can be used in other locations across the country. So yes, that is the goal!” said Holden.
The 2021 BWSF Power Up Triathlon Training Grant: Coached Training Program project will launch March 1, 2021. Online applications must be submitted by March 19th by 5:00PM: Grant Application Form. For further details about the grant, how to apply, or how to get involved, please visit: www.blackwomeninsport.org/triathlon. For other questions, please contact: triathlon@blackwomeninsport.org.
Black Women in Sport Foundation, or BWSF, is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase the involvement of black women and girls in all aspects of sport, including athletics, coaching and administration. For more information, go to www.blackwomeninsport.org.
USA Triathlon’s mission is, “To grow, inspire and support the triathlon community.” USAT is proud to serve as the National Governing Body for triathlon, as well as duathlon, aquathlon, aquabike, winter triathlon, off-road triathlon and paratriathlon in the United States. Founded in 1982, USA Triathlon sanctions more than 4,300 events and connects with more than 400,000 members each year, making it the largest multisport organization in the world.
Coeur Sports’ mission is to build a community. At Coeur, we really believe you can have it all: speed and style, performance and comfort, function and fashion. Our mission is to make women’s triathlon, cycling, run and swim gear that feels so good, looks so good, and performs like whoa.
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