The Guardian published an interesting piece about claims of sexism in the upcoming Olympics. It can be found here and concerns the travel arrangements of teams to London.
It focuses on the fact that men were to travel in business class whereas the women's teams were to travel in economy. In the case of the Japanese women's football team, they highlighted the fact that they were the seniors, in more than just age. The response was that the allocations were made based upon the fact that the male team had 'professional' status. Australia was also highlighted in this article as they flew their basketball teams in different classes. Here however, there was an attempt to provide detail and evidence that could explain the decision to treat professional athletes differently. It was to be based upon.......height.
The Guardian piece points out that one female member of the basketball team was 6ft8 (spokeswoman had said the average height for the women was 183cm and for men 200.2cm) or 203cm. Whereas several men who were mentioned in the article fall below the average height for male basketball players and are nearer to the average height quoted for female players.
There was also a challenge at the High Court regarding women's canoeing, as this is not included at the Games. Locog responded by pointing out that it was not a government body but a private body. However, Wikipedia in listing the role of the IOC shows in point 12 that sports should be encouraged and developed for all. This seems fairly self-explanatory.
I am sure that the upcoming Olympics will be a fantastic celebration of the incredible power and strength of the human body, but it is a shame that in the run up there are these issues that in 2012 should not exist.
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