by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
Thomas Bach has served as president of the International Olympic Committee since 2013, but his announcement to retire prompts a March 2025 election with his replacement taking over June 2025. One of the issues up for debate among the candidates is women’s sport.
The IOC had led changes for the Paris 2024 Olympics to have full gender parity on the field of play, yet there remained controversy regarding gender guidelines and testing. “If we do not protect women’s sport and we don’t have a clear and unambiguous set of policies to do that, then we run the risk of losing women’s sport,” said candidate Sebastian Coe, World Athletics President.
There are examples of that occurring. The Paris Games had controversy in women’s boxing when a gold medal was won by an athlete that had previously failing gender eligibility tests. In women’s college volleyball, a trangender player prompted opposing teams to forfeit matches. In a local sailing event, a women’s perpetual trophy winner was male at birth.
Separating genders in sport is to minimize physical differences that contribute to performance, and for male dominated sports like Sailing, to provide an inclusive environment to encourage female participation. While Sailing is often cited as offering a playing field in which men and women can compete on equal terms, women-only events tend to thrive.
These are tough gender issues that aren’t going away, and the solutions are bound to be imperfect. For events and trophies that focus on female participants, having a plan in advance for disputes that is well understood and legally grounded would be smart to help minimize situations that appear to be coming.
Source: https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2024/12/09/getting-ahead-of-gender-disputes/
