Welcome to The Wrap, a weekly podcast covering women's sports news.
Bez, what have we got around the grounds this week?
The Aussie rugby sevens team have been crowned overall champions
after convincing win over France.
Golden girl Jess Fox has won gold at the Canoe World Cup, we'll go with.
And the Tillys scored a late equaliser to draw with China.
For the key story, we'll chat about Australia's marathon selection drama
with six athletes running the qualifying time for the Olympics,
but only three were chosen to head to Paris later this year.
I guess that's not the drama part.
The drama part is how the selection process works.
Which three of the six.
My name is Chloe Dalton.
I'm joined every week on the show by my co-host Bez.
We're recording on Gadigal land.
Bez, have you got some things on your fingertips or something's going on?
It's just some packing shmegma.
Merch packing shmegma.
It's a great word.
Let's take a look around the grounds.
The Tillys have drawn one all with Asian champions.
China, after Michelle Heyman scored a dramatic equaliser very late into extra time.
For most of the match, the Chinese structure made it hard for the Tillys to play out from the back.
But they eventually got the job done and cracked the strong defence of China.
The starting 11 was a bit of a mix from head coach Tony Gustafsson.
A bit of a mix of regular starters and substitutions.
As Tony's looking to cut his squad down to 18 before the Olympics,
it's going to be announced Tuesday.
We're going to be there.
Oh, it's full on.
So we're recording on Monday.
And the game's on tonight.
The second game's on tonight.
Hopefully a better performance.
It was a little bit underwhelming.
I thought China's defence was pretty solid.
Like, they pressed hard and there were a few nervous moments coming out of the back half.
But, yeah, just lacked a bit of oomph about them.
I think it's been a long season for some of them.
Some of these girls, they need a break.
Some of them are desperate for a little time off.
Meanwhile, in the US, the Australian women's deaf football team suffered an 11-0 loss against
the US women's deaf football team in a historic match, which marked the first televised double
header with a senior US national team.
Still a great effort from the Aussie girls in their first match outside of Australia
in 20 years, with the last time the two teams played being back in 2005.
Go check out the interview with Saskia Newman.
Had a chat with her last week, and she was an absolute legend.
It was a great one.
In some ice hockey news, the inaugural season of the Professional Women's Hockey League
in the USA and Canada has come to an end, with Minnesota defeating Boston 3-0 in Game
5 of the final series.
Minnesota clinched the series on the road at a sold-out Zonga Centre, holding 6,309
Should have been somewhere bigger.
It sold out in seconds.
Like, is that because of home ground advantage?
Like, that is not good enough.
Do we call it a ground?
As I was saying, I was like, home rink.
It comes after Boston evened the best-of-five series in double overtime in Game 4.
Amazingly, Minnesota entered the playoffs on a five-game losing streak and lost the first
two games of their semifinal matchup against Toronto before winning three straight games
to reach the PWHL finals.
Momentum's a funny thing.
Minnesota's Taylor Heisey was the recipient of the Alana Kloss Playoff MVP Award after
leading the playoffs with five goals and finishing with eight points in 10 games played.
Heisey was chosen first overall by Minnesota in the inaugural PWHL draft in September 2023.
The PWHL is set to make Season 2 even bigger, and while the league has said no expansion
is on the cards yet, they've announced that team names and logos are coming with the draft
set to take place.
They've announced that team names and logos are coming with the draft set to take place
in just over a week on the 10th of June.
I think they'd be mad not to expand.
It's been an absolute hit over there in those countries, places that love the ice hockey.
They love the rinks.
Billie Jean King's quote.
Ooh, I've been waiting my whole life for this moment where women's sport is seen as an investment
I think that was it.
I just did that off the top of my head.
That's pretty accurate.
Because I've been repeating it over and over in my head since.
In Rugby Union, the Aussie Rugby Sevens team have absolutely blitzed.
They're way undefeated through the Madrid Sevens tournament to be crowned Sevens overall
The Aussies defeated Ireland, Fiji, and France convincingly in the group stages before producing
a spectacular finish in their semifinal, beating New Zealand 21 to 19 to knock them out of
It was so hectic.
There was less than a minute to go and the Kiwis pretty much looked like they were in
control of the match.
Well, it looked like they were going to seal the match, but a Charlotte-Kaslick pass.
Found Maddie Levi to level the scores to win after the siren, with Levi having broken
the record for most tries in a season earlier in the weekend.
The win was made extra special as the Aussies haven't beaten New Zealand in sevens in over
That's a lot of days.
That's a lot of days.
Tia Hines was so clutch.
So she had to step up.
So the scores were tied at 19 apiece after this try from Maddie Levi.
She had to step up and make the kick.
It would have gone into overtime, right?
But she had a chance to win the game.
And it was not an easy conversion.
Eight in from touch?
Eight to ten metres in from touch.
And it was so clutch.
They then progressed to the final and quite convincingly beat France 26 points to seven
in a very physical match.
That's shocking for the French women's sevens team.
Would you believe that?
Your favourite team.
They broke Chloe's arm three times.
Yeah, pretty much.
Got some PTSD to deal with.
But Maddie Levi hat-trick in the final.
Yeah, which was amazing, actually.
One of the things watching the semi-final, I was like, they've done a real good job shutting
down Maddie Levi here until literally full-time.
So it was nice to see her go back to her normal, outrageously talented self in that final.
In surfing, speaking about some outrageous talent, Tahitian local and wildcard Vahini
Fiero took out the Tahiti Pro on Thursday morning in epic conditions, defeating Costa
Rican surfer and current world number one, Brisa Hennessy.
Taupo was firing, and it will be the surfing venue for the Paris Olympics in just two months'
So it was really cool to see the surfers having the opportunity to get comfortable, as comfortable
as one can be on that ridiculous break where it's hectic.
You basically have nothing between you and thousands of kilometres of ocean, and that
swell just builds up, and then it hits that reef and just pitches over the top.
How was your lingo?
I'm pretty good at stuff like that.
Not car racing, but surfing can lingo.
Fiera will represent France at the Olympics and told reporters after her victory in the final,
my body is so sore.
I gave it my all.
I ate it so many times.
It's just insane.
Thank you, Chiaopu.
Fiera knocked out Aussie Molly Picklam in the quarters and survived a huge Tatiana Western
Web Perfect 10 in the semifinals.
We shared that on our Insta page.
And I love Tatiana after that heat.
So I think Fiera needed like a 8.3, which she got in the last few seconds.
And they interviewed Tatiana pretty shortly afterwards.
And she was just like, I know I lost, but I feel like I won just being out there in those
conditions again, like surfing waves of consequence, like that amazing final that we saw Molly
Picklam win at sunset earlier in the season.
Like it's just these women have been afforded the opportunity to surf in these conditions
before and they're doing it and they're absolutely eating it up.
It's so good, isn't it?
And how rough though?
To surf a perfect 10 and then be like, oh, you just missed it.
You weren't perfect enough.
There's, she's, I think actually she, I think the only other female surfer to score a 10
and lose a heat is Laura Enever.
Do you know where she did that?
I want to say Fiji at Cloud Break.
But I'm totally guessing.
I'm pretty sure she's goofy.
She loved those left hand barrels.
Wow, look at you go.
She just wanted to add a little bit more, isn't it?
In preparation for the fast approaching Paris Olympics, the Australian Opals have commenced
The Opals kicked off their international run with a 72 to 70 victory in game one.
That's a tight win.
But we'll take it.
Lauren Jackson continued her imposing run from WNBL with 17 points and six rebounds.
The Aussies continued their dominance, holding out China to claim an 80 to 72 victory in
game two, where Zatina Okuso finished with 20 points, seven rebounds and two assists.
But the girls fell short of a clean sweep against China, going down 68 to 75 in the
early hours of this morning, Monday morning.
Obviously, the WNBA players aren't there.
Zatina Okuso, huge match.
Is there even going to be a spot for her, though, when it comes time for the Olympics?
Like, our depth in this team is quite something else.
Yeah, she was really strong in the paint, wasn't she?
And then you've got Ezzie, who is just killing it.
She's, Ezzie's just killing it.
She's just amazing.
Had a little bit of a tete-a-tete with Caitlin Clarke the other day.
There's been a few players doing that.
We have not talked about Kennedy Carter.
She needs to check herself.
The fact that she tweeted about it, or it was on threads or something.
All she does is pop up threes.
I just, the Caitlin Clarke hatred is really, just really sad, because she is a phenomenal
She's breaking records all the time.
Like, and she's copying it.
I'm telling you, those refs are not calling some of those fouls.
Her coach walked onto the court the other day and just said, enough, and sprayed the
referees and got tech fouled.
In some more football.
The Argentinian women's football team were in camp preparing for two friendlies against
Costa Rica this weekend when a dispute over paying conditions came to a head.
Starting goalkeeper Lorena Olivieros, defender Julieta Cruz, and midfielder Lorena Benitez
left the team early in the game.
We reached a point in which we are tired of the injustices of not being valued, not being
heard, and even worse, being humiliated.
We need improvements for Argentina's women's soccer national team, and I am not only talking
about finances, I speak about training, having lunch, and breakfast.
The players claim that the squad were only provided a ham and cheese sandwich and a banana
as fuel during the camp.
Look at your eyes.
Just thinking about that.
Their families were being charged 5,000 pesos, which was, it's about $5 or 10 bucks Aussie
per ticket to attend the matches, and the Argentine Football Association told them they
won't be paid for the friendlies as the matches were being held in Buenos Aires.
So it's like, you're playing at home.
That's not how it works.
We're not paying you.
Thanks for clarifying.
It's like people working from home not getting paid for the work they do.
That's a solid, solid comparison.
Two days later, striker.
What do you think?
I think that sounds good.
I think it's bueno.
She told reporters after practice, we do not share the way the players left the squad.
We all fight for the growth of women's soccer.
I support everything they asked for, but we had to be together and make a joint decision
to show up or not show up.
So I think she's kind of saying, agree with why, but not the how.
Which I think fair enough.
Do you know what I think would be really tricky?
Like looking at the fact that it's Argentina.
Trying to live on a ham and cheese sandwich?
You can't get that out of your head.
I can't let that go.
And also working from home.
I'm mad about that.
I'm mad about a lot of things on their behalf.
But imagine them seeing the Argentinian men's team the way that they are treated.
That would really be a slap in the face, I imagine.
So the football team only became professional in 2019 after a strike.
So they've already had to kind of make the noise to become professional.
So they led a strike in 2019.
But for more reports, there's been little in the way of improved conditions and payments
That decision to make them professional.
And I'm using air quotes for those that are listening.
For those that can hear them.
But you know what?
Now we're talking about it.
What do you think an air quote sounds like?
On to the next story.
Turning to water sports.
And Jess Fox has proved once again that you can never count her out until the final race.
Coming away with World Cup gold in Germany.
Fox won the women's C1 canoe slalom event in Augsburg.
Germany after barely scraping into the final a day after finishing 9th in the K1 decider.
The current Olympic C1 gold medalist won by a margin of eight seconds at the season opening
canoe slalom World Cup event.
She said it's been a tough weekend.
It's been wet and harsh.
I've been trying to manage the nerves that come with the first World Cup of the season.
But now I'm thrilled to be back on the podium and to be on the top step.
There was this sorry, this is slightly off topic, but there was this very funny video from
Ironman Triathlon of the woman who won it could not stand up on the podium.
She was like cramping and so fatigued that she was like crawling onto the podium and her
competitors on like second and third place were trying to help her up and she still couldn't
stand. So she sat on the podium and was awarded her medal.
Anyway, good on you, Jess Fox.
Sorry for the side note.
Intermex for athletics news.
Well, some we're going to hit athletics in the in the key story, but some athletics news,
some less controversial running news.
Australia's Georgia Griffith has stolen the show at the Oslo leg of the Diamond League with
a golden finish in the 3000 meters.
It was Griffith's maiden Diamond League victory in that event, setting a new Australian and
Oceania record with a time of eight minutes and twenty four point two seconds.
All eyes were on previous record holder Jess Hull during the seven and a half lap race.
Who finished third less than two seconds behind Griffith.
I'm going to look to you for a reaction and you give me the exact one that fits in that space.
You know what it's going to be.
It makes it makes me feel happy.
Let's take a look at the key story.
So continuing on with athletics, there's been a bit of drama around the marathon.
Do you want to give us a rundown?
So six Aussie women ran a qualifying time for the Paris Olympics.
Only three can compete.
Tonight, Diver Genevieve Gregson and Jess Stenson, the trendgrove, were all selected by
Athletics Australia.
Doyle and Eloise Willings missed out.
So the controversy controversy around that is.
Waitman actually ran the third fastest time behind Diver and Gregson during the
qualification period, so she ran faster than Jess Stenson's time.
Stenson's selection appears to be one kind of based on what the selectors feel is her
potential to run faster.
She ran her time in April, which was just six months after giving birth to her second
And also she won gold at the 2022 Comm Games.
So there's this kind of theory that she's here for the big time events.
Yeah. Have they articulated that or is that just speculation around the fact they've picked
her based on her ability to step up in big moments?
I believe they provided the reasoning to both the athletes and the National Sports
Tribunal, but it hasn't been made public.
Right. I did see a statement that wasn't great.
Yeah. Basically, we pick who we want to pick.
So a few different people have kind of weighed in on this.
Obviously, Sally Pearson is a good friend of Lisa Waitman.
So she wrote an article and she slammed Athletics Australia and said, I can't believe what is
happening in the sport I love dearly.
I'm disappointed with the national team selection panel, but I'm more shocked at the integrity
of Athletics Australia and how this has become a total farce.
Tamsin Lewis-Manu, who I like how she's approached it.
She told Radio Station 3.
A W that Athletics Australia should remove all grey area related to selections and replicate
the USA selection procedure by a one off trial race so all runners compete in the same
conditions over the same course and the first three to cross the line qualify.
Yeah, I think it's quite a good solutions based approach.
And I think that's probably the thing from both Sally and Tamsin, I think it's just the
lack of transparency around how it's going to work and the fact that Jess has come back
from having a baby.
They probably should have palliative care.
But there are policies in place now around selection criteria.
For example, if you're returning from injury, if you're returning from pregnancy and there's
a window of time, but only limited qualification spots, this is our process.
Yeah, when I was when I was thinking about this, I thought it's interesting to actually
take a lens from a team sports perspective and put it over this individual sport.
And I know there's definitely some team tactics in marathon running and things like that,
but effectively it's an individual sport.
You've definitely been on the end of selections.
That you didn't agree with in a team's team environment.
But at the end of the day, it's the selection panel's decision, right?
So how is that different to this?
So, well, I think it is because it's so objective.
It's a time measurable, so measurable, whereas team selection.
But is it objective if they're running in different conditions over different courses at
different periods of their.
And this is why that solution of just have one one flat out race, you know, everyone
competes. One, two, three, you go.
Yeah. And yeah, it's it's a valid point.
I've never run a marathon and I don't know how much it changes based on courses, but it does
I believe there are hard and easier courses.
But OK, let's bring in this.
And what if it's raining and what if it's cold and it's or it's really hot or, you know,
I mean, it's not the same environment that they've all competed in across this selection
For this, I'm going to actually talk about the kind of awkward moment on Twitter that got a
little bit personal.
So Lisa Waitman's husband, Lachlan MacArthur, publicly messaged Jess Stenson on ex-former
With a since deleted post saying, at Jess Trengrove, can you please take down your background
photo of my family?
By the way, this was after one of the seven to one all time head to head wins by at Lisa
It could have potentially been a personal message.
Obviously, that was very heated.
But I think that's an interesting stat.
It would have been her six Olympics.
Is she getting old and slow?
Six, I think it was a record.
Oh, I thought it was fifth.
It's still impressive.
Did you say is she getting old?
Yeah, well, I'm putting my selector hat on.
First of all, I just want to say it's amazing that we had six women that ran a qualifying
And that's really cool.
The state of athletics in Australia is exceptional.
And it's really actually sad that this is why it's getting a whole heap of media at
the moment instead of just celebrating how bloody good they are.
But I think, yeah, I think the process needs to be changed.
There's way too much grey involved.
But I also think that it is an interesting debate to have in regards to selecting the
best athlete for the job at hand.
You are the most grey person I know.
You've failed in your application to be a selector.
Are you saying I do have a lot of grey patches in my hair?
No, I'm talking about your personality.
I just like to see all sides, okay?
I think it's good.
It's a good way to go through life.
Well, yeah, so just to kind of sum things up, Waitman did apply to the National Sports
Tribunal and they recommended an independent committee to reconsider Athletic Australia's
Athletic Australia declined to do so and reconfirmed their decision with the same selection committee.
That's a little arrogant.
And then Waitman actually informed her that she was going to make one final appeal to
the Court of Arbitration for sport in Switzerland.
But changed her mind hours later, given the ridiculously high costs involved, I'm sure
for lawyers and whatnot.
So, yeah, and apparently had been given advice that there was only a slight chance that decision
would be overturned.
So, I think, you know, it is decided now, but it's an unfortunate way for a light to
be shone on these amazing six athletes.
Yeah, it's rough, isn't it?
Let's take a look at what to watch.
The Hockey Roos continue their campaign in the European League of the FAH.
This week, after a mixed bag of results so far, the Aussies will be looking for victory
against Great Britain on the weekend.
The match starts at 9.15 p.m. AEST this Saturday, the 8th of June, and is live and free on 7+.
State of Origin is back for Game 2, where.
State against state.
Mate against mate.
The Queen's Sanders will be looking to win one back from New South Wales and take the
series to a Game 3 decider.
The NRL has announced the game is already a sellout, so it will re-break the attendance
record set only a couple of weeks ago.
How good is that?
The action kicks off in Newcastle on Wednesday night at 8.05 p.m. AEST on the Nine Network.
Okay, hear me out.
I know I'm what to watch, and it's not really time for a discussion, but I'm making it one
because first time they've had three games.
They've been begging for it for ages.
I hate Queensland, but I kind of a little bit want them in me wants them to win.
To go to a decider.
They've been asking for three games for so long.
Yeah, so three zip would be great.
No, I hear what you're saying.
You want to build it because then the third game is in Townsville, I believe.
I believe it's in Townsville.
And then if it is a decider, it will be huge.
I hear you for that.
But go three zip girls.
In surfing, the City Surf El Salvador Pro starts this Sunday.
Ozzy Tyler Wright will surf in.
The opening heat.
Well, fellow Aussie Molly Picklem surfs in heat four.
You can watch all the action live on Sunday.
The way to provide the waiting period starts then on ESPN and free on the WSL app.
On Saturday, the Adelaide Thunderbirds host the West Coast Fever at the Adelaide Entertainment
Center in the Super Netball.
The reigning premiers will be looking to take down the fever who only have one loss to their
name so far this season.
The match starts at 7 p.m.
And is live on KO and Fox Netball.
And that's a wrap.
Thanks for listening.