Yet a mere glimpse at any women’s beach volleyball match at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics makes clear why that is the question for so many women athletes.
Athletes must train their bodies beyond what seems the limits of human capacity to excel at international competitions. So the last thing they need when they show up is bureaucratic BS like this – as reported by Euronews on July 20:
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Norway has been fined €1,500 after their women’s beach handball team did not wear bikini bottoms at a European competition.
Norway’s players wore shorts in their bronze medal match against Spain at the European Beach Handball Championship in Varna, Bulgaria, on Sunday.
But the uniform violated the regulations of the International Handball Federation (IHF), which requires players to wear fitted, low-cut bikini bottoms. …
‘Of course we would pay any fine,’ NHF president Kare Geir Lio told AFP, ‘we are all in the same boat.’
But Norwegian sports circles and commentators have expressed their outrage at the punishment. Players have previously stated that bikini bottoms are too degrading or impractical.
‘In 2021, it shouldn’t even be an issue,’ Eirik Sørdahl, president of the Norwegian Volleyball Federation, told the national agency NTB.
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With all due respect to the president of the Norwegian Handball Federation, if they are indeed in the same boat about this requirement being “too degrading and impractical”, they should not pay any fine.
They should dare the Taliban enforcers of women’s athletic wear to make an international case of it. And, in venting their indignation, Norway’s players should point to the fuddy-duddy official at the English Athletics Championships in Bedford a week ago Sunday – who reprimanded two-time Paralympic world champion Olivia Breen because her “competition briefs were too short”. What the hell’s a woman to do?
Indeed, if you saw Norway defeat South Korea at the Olympics on Sunday, you’ll appreciate their consternation. Because its players were wearing the same shorts that got its players fined at the European championship one week earlier.
Mind you, not too far away, the women’s beach volleyball tournament was underway. And, as indicated above, they are wearing bikini bottoms that make the one that got Breen reprimanded at the English Athletics Championship look frumpy.
Then there’s the position the Germans are taking in this unfolding sartorial farce:
The German women’s gymnastics team has forgone bikini-cut unitards in favor of full-body versions at the Tokyo Olympics, in what the German Gymnastics Federation has branded a statement against ‘sexualization.’
The suits, which the team wore in their qualifications at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics on Sunday, cover the legs to the ankle and are in contrast to the high-cut leotards worn by many other female gymnasts at the Olympics.
‘It’s about what feels comfortable,’ German gymnast Elisabeth Seitz said. ‘We wanted to show that every woman, everybody, should decide what to wear.’
(CNN, July 26, 2021)
For the record, I checked out those suits, er, for blogging purposes. And, whatever their good-faith intent to de-sexualize their athletic look, those German gymnasts still look pretty “sexy” in those skin-tight unitards. But there’s no denying that, by wearing them, they displayed far more modesty than beach volleyball players (or practically any other female athlete at these Games).
Having said all that, here’s my real beef with this surreal controversy: Why do these dress requirements only appear to pertain to women athletes?
At the very least, the guardians of sports modesty could require male athletes to wear jock straps that keep their package more tightly packed (or is that tucked?). After all, if ballet dancers in tights can do so, track and field athletes in lycra can too.
More to the point, though, I trust those of us who support Norway’s players will never fail to point out the sexism inherent in requiring women to wear bikini bottoms but not requiring men to wear speedos. Not to mention the way it seemed perfectly natural for men to blithely free their nipples to cool off during cycling and triathlon races over the past few days.
The point is that female athletes should be given the same freedom male athletes enjoy to choose whatever outfit gives them the best possible chance to compete at their best. And, if that’s a bikini or a burqa, so be it.
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