Women basketball players get new weight room after exposing disparity with male counterparts

An American basketball player has helped to spark conversation and change after highlighting the disparity of the weights facilities between the men’s and women’s teams.

In a TikTok that was later posted on her Twitter account, Oregon player Sedona Prince showed audiences the huge difference in access to weights between male and female players at the NCAA March Madness tournament, which she describes as “the biggest tournament in college basketball for women”.

Pointing to a weight rack with six pairs of weights on it, Prince says: “This is our weight room”. She then shows viewers the men’s weight room, situated in a huge room containing multiple pieces of professional weight-lifting equipment, barbells and weight racks.

She says the NCAA’s statement they put out after images of the disparity went viral was false. In it, they said the female weight room was a space problem. However, as Prince shows in the viral TikTok, there was plenty of unused extra space.

The NCAA have since made some changes and Prince revealed in a later TikTok that the woman had been given a new, much-improved weight room following the backlash. She excitedly tells viewers: “Guess what, guys? We got a weight room”.

Flipping the camera, she reveals the upgraded weight room now which contains “a tonne more dumbbells”, racks and resistance bands. She captioned the video saying: “Social media is powerful. Thank you for all of y’all’s support.”

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Twitter users who’d followed the story were pleased to see things had been resolved.