New institute funds $50 million research to prevent injuries in female athletes and keep them playing longer

As thousands of female athletes take the world stage in Milan to compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics, a group is investing more than $50 million to revolutionize their careers by closing the gaps for women in sports medicine research.

“We have this Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute (WHSP) that has a clinical component, a research component, a training environment and education all under one roof, so that it’s one very cohesive engine,” Dr. Kate Ackerman, former Team USA rower and co-founder of the institute, told NBC News. “And this is something that’s been a long time coming.”

Despite the exponential growth of female athletes across competitive sports, less than 10% of research has focused on women and their bodies, according to Ackerman. The institute is hoping to focus on the challenges specific to women across age groups, including those who are postpartum and post-menopause, in an effort to prevent injuries and keep athletes playing longer.

Ackerman went to medical school after retiring from competition, dedicating her career to closing the gaps for women in sports medicine research. Creating a space where female athletes can be studied, educated and treated in one place, Ackerman hopes to keep them from getting lost in the shuffle the way some of her prior patients have felt in the past.

“Because there’s so much talk about women athletes, and because there’s so much talk about women’s health, people feel that, ‘Oh, it must be taken care of,’” Ackerman said. “But we’re just not there yet.”

The Women’s Health, Sports & Performance Institute is a place where female athletes can be studied, educated and treated in one place. WHSP

The group behind WHSP is determined to close the gap where women’s sports are still stuck in a “male-first model.” Among the investors is Clara Wu Tsai, co-owner of the New York Liberty and Brooklyn Nets, and Jane and David Ott, who serve on the USA Track & Field Foundation board.

“Better data means more actionable guidance,” Jane Ott said in a press release announcing the investment. “Our goal is to optimize the experience, performance, and longevity of the next generation of female athletes.”

WHSP will be a member of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, where Ackerman has spent the last five years working on scientific advancements for women. Wu Tsai described the research area as “chronically understudied and underfunded.”

“Through both the Alliance and WHSP, I’m thrilled to continue supporting this important area of research for female athletes—both professional and recreational—around the world,” Wu Tsai said.

While many across the world are celebrating the remarkable return of American skier Lindsey Vonn, her career trajectory also serves as an inspiration for what is possible. Vonn came out of retirement and qualified for this year’s Winter Games at the age of 41 despite repeated knee injuries that were thought to have ended her career.

“Over the last few decades, we are seeing women push for a longer time,” Ackerman said. “I think when a lot of us were training, we thought it was an either-or — either you are training at a high level or you’re moving on and you’re having a family, or you’re moving on after a major injury. I mean, Lindsay is such a good example of somebody who’s so strong and has such perseverance.”

Vonn has had multiple knee injuries throughout her career: tears to her medial collateral and anterior cruciate ligaments at the 2013 World Championships, then a complete ACL tear later that year which forced her to pull out of the 2014 Winter Olympics, and a lateral collateral ligament tear in 2018 that led to her announcing her retirement.

Women are significantly more likely to suffer knee injuries and are two to eight times more likely to tear their ACLs in comparison to men, according to Yale Medicine. Prior studies have shown that women have different physiology that might lead to the increased risk and fluctuating hormone cycles have also been attributed as a potential factor.

Relative energy deficiency, a syndrome that occurs when athletes are not getting the right level of fuel for the calories they burn, is also an area where research has not asked the right questions for female athletes, Ackerman said.

“Women are expensive to study,” Ackerman said. “Studying those changes in hormones can be really time-consuming, and so it was easier to just not think about it. And time has come for us to think about it. We don’t care how hard it is. We know that it’s really important, and we know that the athletes are asking for it.”

But if people are looking to constantly raise the bar of competition, it makes sense to invest in research on how to prevent injuries and keep women playing at an elite level for longer, she added.

“If our amazing athletes are given better equipment and there’s more attention on their physiology and improved training plans and better understanding what they need, we think that there will be more competition, there will be better performances, there will be more longevity, and inevitably, that’s going to mean breaking more records and just having a higher level of play,” Ackerman said.