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Sydney Sweeney’s cartoonish provocation has sparked a culture war but let’s just admit sport can be sexy | Emma John

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Yes sport is about effort, sweat and inclusivity – but it also turns elite athletes into magnificent specimens of humanity where the aesthetic is part of the appeal Have you seen the 40-second video that will change the way you think about women’s sport, women’s bodies, just, you know, women? It’s been unavoidable on social media this week – brazen, unapologetic, dominating the algorithm like an AI kitten hacking a banana-bread recipe while lip-syncing to Cardi B.

I for one have enjoyed it at least 50 times already. It starts with some carefully curated passive-aggression – “Dear Sydney”, “Hey Sydney”, “Respectfully Sydney” – and follows up with clips of what, in its own words, “a woman in sport actually looks like”. It shows its subject pounding the treadmill or powering down the back straight, flooring a rival with a tackle or a roundhouse kick, lifting weights or throwing herself through the air. It is, inevitably, soundtracked by Dua Lipa.

Training Season is getting a serious bump this week.

Read the original report at The Guardian.

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1 source from 1 organisation: 1 newspaper or magazine.

  1. 1The GuardianThe Guardian · theguardian.comNewspaper or magazine

Source headline and summary supplied via NewsData.io. First collected by NewsJaws on 2026-09-18. This is an automated news brief, not original NewsJaws reporting. Dates reflect the source publication. Feed delays may apply.

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