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There was no clock in the old Catholic church, but Paola Kuri was so focused on the time she could hear the ticktock, ticktock ringing in her ears. It was a First Holy Communion like many she had attended as a little girl in Mexico City, and as usual, she was in another flower-printed dress that she couldnt wait to take off.As soon as the ceremony was over, Kuri bolted for the car. The boys might pick teams and leave her out if she didnt get to the soccer field fast enough. So, she slid on her jeans, next to her soccer jersey and tennis shoes in the backseat, and told her dad to step on the gas.It was like changing into my superhero outfit, Kuri says. When I got onto the soccer field, that was my world.The founder of?Fut sin Género (Soccer without Gender), an initiative to promote womens soccer in Mexico, Kuris obsession with the sport began as a three year old, kicking a ball in her parents backyard until the sun went down. A skinny girl with a thicket of blondish-brown hair that she stuffed into a baseball cap to look tough enough for the boys to let her play, she was a natural. Before the age of 10, she had earned a place as one of the best players in the neighborhood -- the only girl on the field.Kuris passion for soccer developed alongside a commitment to art. Before completing a communications degree from Ibero-American University, where she played soccer on an all-female team, she moved abroad to Italy to earn an MFA at Florence University of the Arts. In 2013, she and her brother Rubén co-founded Ethos Arte, an art fair that annually showcases more than 500 pieces from 60 emerging Mexican artists at the Expo Santa Fe.Around that time, Kuri also began contributing articles to a blog dedicated to womens soccer, Ellas Tambíen Saben?(They Also Know). Hoping to marry her love of art and sport, she interviewed 50 different people about what soccer means to them and posted the answers up alongside pictures of her body painted while wearing her soccer gear. Within hours, the post, #YoSoyFutbol (#IAmSoccer), was shared by notable figures in Mexico, including former national team soccer player Luis García and former first lady Margarita Zavala.I chose not to reveal the gender of any of the people, Kuri says. It was an important way of saying: It doesnt matter whether you are a man or a woman, soccer belongs to all of us, and we all love it for the same reasons.Kuris social media presence ballooned overnight. After receiving calls from newspapers and messages from people interested in discussing her project, she registered Fut sin Género and began work on campaigns promoting the sport.What weve done with Fut sin Género is hit the red button to start the conversation about womens soccer, Kuri says. We have a big task ahead of us -- we need to make a statement that will touch the whole country.For the past year, that statement was clear: Play a role in launching the first professional womens soccer league in Mexicos history.***Before Kuri arrived in the United States as a participant in the 2016 U.S. Department of State and espnW Global Sports Mentoring Program, the potential for a professional womens soccer league seemed likelier than ever.In May 2015, the Mexican Football Federation launched La Liga Nacional Femenil, the countrys first national womens amateur league. The inaugural season began with 158 teams from 19 states in two age categories: under-13 and under-16.There were 3,000 girls every week playing football, says Lucia Mijares Martinez, technical director of development for the federation.The second season would create an even wider impact, according to Martinez, with three age categories (under-13, under-15, under-17), at least five more states and a 25 percent growth in teams.Our objective (at the federation) is to motivate, engage and inspire girls in Mexico through football, Martinez says, We want to build a competitive league, train coaches and generate a platform for future womens football heroes.As Kuri returned from Los Angeles, where she spent three weeks in October and November being mentored by Joan Coraggio, group director for sponsorship and experiential marketing at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles, the pieces for a professional league to follow the amateur league began falling into place.Then, the official announcement came on Dec. 5. The federation would launch Liga MX Femenil, a professional womens league consisting of 18 teams, for the spring of 2017.The announcement was the culmination of years of hard work by women like Kuri, Mijares Martinez and many others, including fellow GSMP alumna Cecilia Vales, who founded a nongovernmental organization, She Wins Mexico. From grassroots programs to reach girls in underserved areas of Mexico (Vales), to advocating for womens soccer from within the federation (Martinez), to rallying supporters and pushing the message of gender equality to thousands through social media (Kuri), women came together to claim a space on the field for themselves and many more to come after them.But the fact that one of her lifes greatest ambitions was fulfilled earlier this month has not slowed Kuri down.This is just the first step, Kuri says. We still face challenges: the mindset of machismo and making womens soccer popular across Mexico. But weve opened a path to get there.With the same hardworking mindset, Kuri continues striving to get girls playing soccer. In recent months, she has partnered with prominent professional European soccer clubs to support the development of girls soccer academies throughout Mexico City. Kuri and her Ethos team are also at work recovering spaces in marginalized communities, painting the fields, restoring the grass, and partnering with shoe company Puma to provide balls and cleats for girls to play.Her brother, Rubén, has had the benefit of seeing Kuris passion from the time they were kids to now as co-founders of Ethos. He remembers when the cousins would get together to play soccer and Paola was the automatic choice for team captain. He also remembers the frustration he felt when his sister would leave the house dressed like a boy, thinking it wasnt fair that she had to become someone else just so she could play.I would try to make it better by telling her to at least wear some dresses and heels when she wasnt going to play, he says. And shed tell me, No, lets go to Puma or Adidas! To this day, we may have an important meeting, and well pass by a sports store, and Ill tell her, Dont even think about it! Its our little joke.As with his older sister, the success of Fut sin Género also caught Rubén by surprise. With messages of support and invitations to lead girls clinics coming in for Kuri from Monterey, Guadalajara, Tijuana and Queretaro, she has had to step back from some of her responsibilities in the art world. But, Rubén is happy to support his sister in her other life as an advocate.I believe you are born with a gift, and this is definitely Paolas gift, he says.The gift extends from the soccer field to the internet, where Kuri manages Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with tens of thousands of followers. In every post, she seems to share the same message that she did in the #IAmSoccer blog post more than a year ago: Soccer belongs to everyone.The future of womens soccer in Mexico is not cemented despite the establishment of the womens league. Knowing that, Kuri was led through a mental exercise by her mentor, Coraggio, before leaving Los Angeles last month. In it, Coraggio challenged her motivations for wanting a professional league for women. It was an important part of the younger woman realizing the fire that drives her comes from somewhere deeper than just making history.We are challenging ideologies that soccer is only for men, Kuri says. We are making a statement for gender equality. For me, that matters more than anything.Brian Canever is the digital content manager for the Center for Sport, Peace, & Society at the University of Tennessee and works closely with the GSMP participants.Wholesale Air Max 90 Ultra Se . Walcott is available for Saturdays home match against Southampton as Arsenal looks to extend its two-point lead at the top of the Premier League. The Gunners are currently the second highest scorers in the league but Wenger insists Walcott will add something extra to his team. Wholesale Air Max 90 Black . Barcelonas entertaining victory ensured the defending Spanish champions retained their share of the league lead with Atletico Madrid two rounds ahead of their meeting in the capital. 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However, she is not just any Californian who spends her days on the beach.You know, I think sometimes the idea of a beach volleyball body gets mixed up a little bit with kind of the casual beachgoer layout in a bikini type of deal, said Ross, who won a silver medal in beach volleyball at the 2012 Olympics. For me, I value kind of the power of my body and I think Im a little bit more muscular than you might expect.Ross, who is in Brazil for the Rio Olympics with beach volleyball partner Kerri Walsh Jennings, sat down with ESPN The Magazine for its 2016 Body Issue to talk about just how she got her stellar beach body.Healthy choicesFirst things first, Ross doesnt take any crap -- and she doesnt eat any crap, either.If I was content just eating pizza and drinking soda all day ... thats obviously not going to be as effective as me sacrificing eating that crap and trying to eat healthier year after year, Ross said.Not your average beach dayRoss is a frequent beachgoer, but she doesnt go just to get a tan. She says the best way to prepare to play on the beach volleyball court is to practice on the beach.Beach weighted workouts: If you see me walk out on the beach, Im carrying a bench, I have a weight vest on, Im dragging a sled with 35 pounds on it, a medicine ball, cones.ddddddddddddSo Im just trying to do beach volleyball movements, but weighted and restricted.Beach cardio: I do cardio on the sand. Every weekend Ill do an hour of cardio in the gym just to mix it up.Balance is keyRoss did gymnastics when she was younger before she got too tall to compete. She says her lessons taught her balance and stability.Challenge acceptedSome parts of training can be very difficult for Ross, and those are the parts she does most often.Burpees:?One thing that sucks are burpees, so I started to do those as much as possible. With a burpee, you jump up and then put your hands on the ground, kick your legs out and do a pushup, kick your legs in and then do a jump. Ive started doing them with a weight vest.Lifting: I love Olympic lifting. I find it challenging and really productive, so I love doing cleans and snatches and deadlifts and all that.Pull-ups:?My core has always been pretty strong, but especially compared to other athletes my arm strength is just a little bit less than average. So Ive tried to work on that a lot.This summer, espnW is running stories, essays and letters on body image as part of a series called Love, My Body. Read more from the series ? ' ' '