Rocket launcher: When women are faster than men

Chloe Kelly cannot only kick a soccer ball faster than a cheetah can run, she can kick it harder than any male player in the English Premier League.

When Kelly scored the winning penalty for England in the UEFA Women’s Euro final on Monday, she launched the ball at 110 km/h. Her kick was faster than Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak whose strike against Liverpool reached 109.9 km/h and was the quickest recorded in the EPL.

It wasn’t the first time Kelly had upstaged the men.

England's Chloe Kelly celebrates with the trophy after winning the Women's Euro 2025.Credit: AP

Two years earlier, in the round of 16 of the 2023 Women’s World Cup, Kelly was called upon to take the fifth penalty against Nigeria in Brisbane. Just like the Euro final, if Kelly scored, her team would win the match.

In what’s become a routine so uniquely choreographed that fans have started mimicking her at home, before taking off, Kelly raises her left knee, waits, and then jumps onto it, propelling her toward the ball.

In that game against Nigeria, Kelly’s goal reached 110.79 km/h which fans again were quick to point out was faster than any strike made during the previous Premier League season, beating West Ham’s Said Benrahma’s 107.2km/h shot. For another comparison, cheetahs, the fastest land-based animal, run at 110 km/h.

Though Kelly hasn’t given much of an explanation for her technique, saying it became her routine when playing for Everton in 2018, her teammate Lucy Bronze described how Kelly’s able to generate so much power in a TikTok video: When Kelly lifts her leg, Bronze says she’s resting it: “That’s what helps her generate the power, resting the leg.”

Kelly isn’t the only female athlete to outdo her male counterparts.

During the 2024 US Open, current tennis world no. 1 Aryna Sabalenka was recording forehand speeds of 129 km/h – faster than any other player, man or woman, in the tournament. Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner and Novak Djokovic reached speeds of 127km/h, 126km/h and 122 km/h, respectively.

Earlier, at the 2024 French Open, Sabalenka’s forehand (125 km/h) was again faster than Sinner’s (122 km/h).

In an interview with Championat, her coach Anton Dubrov explained how: “There are many factors here. First of all, Aryna trains and clearly understands what she needs... We try to transfer everything that happens during the match as closely as possible to training, so that she does everything automatically.”

He also said that male players have higher levels of spin and play more widely on the court. Slower balls targeting Sabalenka give her more time to swing harder. Shorter matches also mean female players can afford to burn more energy faster.

“But this does not change the fact that Aryna can hit the ball hard,” Dubrov said.

Ultramarathons are another event where women’s times are often faster than mens. American ultramarathon runners Courtney Dauwalter, Camille Herron and Maggie Guterl have repeatedly won races against men and back a theory that’s been burgeoning since the 1990s that women are faster over longer distances than men.

Although highlighting the times when women are faster than men is really just highlighting the times when women are the fastest of any gender, it can be a practice that does more damage to women’s sport than uplifting them.

Kim Toffoletti is an associate professor of sociology at Deakin University and has researched gender disparities in sport. She said comparing women’s achievements to benchmarks set by men often reinforces gender hierarchies in sport.

“If a man posts the fastest kick in a tournament, there’s never a comparison to women, because it’s always assumed that there’s no woman who could be better,” she said.

“I think that there is a degree to which that then diminishes the value of women’s sport achievements on their own terms, and that women don’t need to compare themselves to men to be valued as elite and skilled professional athletes.”