Saturday, February 27, 2010

For some people, it will always be the 1950s: The IOC's sexist behavior


As DRDR pointed out in the comments, the Olympic Committee's actions have been raising a few eyebrows, notably for their insensitive blaming of "athlete error" for a Georgian Luge athlete's death.  As the sane world quickly pointed out, athletes frequently make errors, and almost never pay with their lives.  Usually death occurs when athletes' natural human fallibility combines with unsafe conditions.

On top of that, DRDR mentions some blatantly sexist behavior on the part of the committee.  They have refused to allow women's ski jumping to become an Olympic sport, despite a woman holding the world record (among either men or women) at the Whistler jump.  From Time magazine:
In 2005, Gian Franco Kasper, FIS president and a member of the IOC, said that he didn't think women should ski jump because the sport "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."

1 comment:

  1. Its rather laughable to ban women's ski jump from the Olympics for fear of their health, as if women have never and will never ski jump until the Olympics allows them to compete. Then again, from what else I've heard on this issue, the problem is that women could damage their reproductive systems while jumping (quit jumping, have babies).

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