Nothing in sport flowers by accident.

The argument is institutional, not personal. Passion without structure becomes chance, and chance does not build a future. Girls do not leave sport in adolescence because they lose interest; they leave because the system was not built to hold them.

UNESCO records that 40% of girls drop out of sport when adolescence begins. IOC data for 2024 shows women in senior leadership in 27% of International Federations and presidencies at 18%; in National Olympic Committees, executive positions average below 26%. Half of the International Federations have no active policy on prevention, equality or representation.

Quotas are not a privilege, they are a structural repair. Research from MIT and WomenLift Health shows that once one woman enters through a quota, the number arriving afterwards on merit rises between 200% and 600%. Quotas do not replace merit; they multiply it.

The talk includes a live exercise, the helium stick, in which a group that all wants to lower a bar watches it rise instead. Without coordination, communication and structure, good intentions are not enough. Institutions fail in exactly the same way.

Excellence is not winning but evolving. Friendship is not company but community. Respect is not tolerance but building environments that are safe, sustainable and human. A single door, opened by an institution, does not change one story: it changes generations.

With thanks to World Skate for a place to grow; to MEMOS and the IOC executive programme for the knowledge, the network and the confidence; to Olympic Solidarity; and to the organisers of the First Urban Sports Congress and of the MEMOS congress in Rome. Individual participants are not named here, out of respect for their privacy.