The Olympics kicked off this week, the official opening ceremony taking place tonight, but our rowers are in action this afternoon and the women’s football team played their first match on Wednesday night. Unfortunately the Football Ferns went down 2-1 to Australia, the highlight Gabi Rennie scoring on her debut for the Ferns.
This week, Brisbane have been announced as hosts of the 2032 Olympics. This is fantastic for Australia, and there will be benefits for Aotearoa too. However, the NY Times shared some interesting insights into John Coates, and some of his roles within IOC. He heads the Australian Olympic Committee and was deputy of the bid committee, and is one of the vice presidents of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Brisbane is the first city to be announced as host under new provisions, designed for the IOC by Coates. He has a leadership role on the IOC’s legal commission, who are looking at sanctioning rules for athletes that protest on the podium. If an athlete wants to appeal this sanction, it goes to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, also headed by Coates. If you want to see Coates in action, here is a video that shows Coates patronisingly rebuking Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in front of a press conference. For such a public, off the cuff, display of misogyny in a room full of cameras, it would suggest Coates thinks this is a normal way to speak. Coates’ ‘apology‘ claims what he said was misinterpreted by those not in the room – despite the whole thing being caught on camera. So not really an apology then.
Uniforms in women’s sport has always been a contentious issue, with discussions focusing on the body, sexualisation, and being told what to wear by governing bodies. German gymnasts recently made headlines for wanting to wear full body leotards to be less sexualisd and NZ Gymnastics has relaxed the rules over what can be worn. Likewise, volleyball. The Norwegian Handball team have made a similar request, for 15 years to their national body because their bikinis make them feel uncomfortable, but instead of listening, the Norwergian team were threatened with fines and disqualification for wanting to wear bike pants instead of bikinis. The International Handball regulations for women’s uniform, I kid you not, state: “Women should wear a bikini where the top should be a tight-fitting sports bra with deep openings at the arms… [The bottoms] with a close fit and cut on an upward angle towards the top of the leg. The side width must be of a maximum of 10 centimetres.” And the uniform must be “attractive”. Surely written with a certain type of spectator in mind rather than the athlete, especially when you compare the women’s uniform to the men’s, in the photo above. The Norwegian team played in the bike shorts anyway for their semi final and were duly fined $NZ2,400 for “improper clothing”. Meanwhile, British long jump Paralympian Olivia Breen was told off by one of the officials at a recent English Championship that her (regulation, Adidas, uniform) briefs were too brief.
What do Coates, the Norwegian handball team, and Olivia Breen have in common? In one week, we saw three instances of women being told what to do, very publicly and patronisingly, in situations where there was definitely a better option available. In a time when organisations are constantly talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion, and it’s in the news daily (e.g. see below!), it’s unfathomable and frustratingly infuriating that this is still happening.
Check out all the media headlines in women’s sport for the 23rd July right here.
Alida Shanks 