International Olympic Committee announcement today! Will it be regarding female sports?

just wonderful news!! Thank you to all the women out there who fought for this (crazy that we should have to but there we are.)

This is being reported on on the PM programme on Radio 4. They don't approve and the overall message is that it's all too complicated with the solution being all too simplistic for there to be a ban.

Exactly this. And since all his international records have now been broken by swimmers who don’t possess his identical physicality it pretty much proves that it was the dedication, training, nutrition, and emphasis on analysing and shaving micro seconds off elements of each race that not only made him a record breaker but have helped others to emulate and exceed his achievements. And the super sleek swimwear possibly plays a part!

If not... Why not?

Neither am I, but publicly they will be expected to toe the line and call out the IOC on this

If the Greens win the next election, will they be proposing a boycott of the following Olympics?

Tracy Holmes really shits me. She’s so fucking annoying. I had to find out what dumb question she asked. For anyone interested Tracy starts her question at 37:00 in the video from the first post. Here’s the link again:

https://www.youtube.com/live/qcwDZ3897sk?si=tmFVuAFjsoC4rUic

Yes the assumption that this is a politically tribal issue is very wrong. Here there are Tories who are right and who are wrong, same for Labour. The only ones with consensus are the Greens and I'm not convinced that some of them are true believers in the comfort of their own home.

Injured and crap Nick Kyrios re the wonderful Aryna Sabalenka being a recent example.

Assuming what one side says is always true and 'right' and what the other side says is 'lies' or 'wrong' is part of why we're in this mess.

That's not a dig at you, more my own reflection.

Unfortunately it is often the reverse. Shit male athletes beating elite women. Apparently even average male athletes in collegiate sports can beat the record times of elite women in sprint events. It’s all to do with pelvic development, well not all of it, but a lot of it. Theirs are built for forward propulsion and ours are built to birth babies.

Its a start though, well done IOC. Now make sure it filters down to grassroots sports ,oh and the girl guides and women’s institute,

Great, hopefully will filter down and spread across to other competitions and sports too.

I smiled at the headline on the Radio 4 5pm news:

The women's category at the Olympics will be limited to biological females from 2028.

That invites debate as to why things shouldn't be like this. What a vast improvement over the #nodebate times.

🤣

I thought this when I read the headlines… women’s sport is only for women…. Errrr, you think?

I don’t spend any time on these boards but I’m very interested in sport. This just feels so obvious;

If we need sex based segregation in sports for it to be fair, then people need to compete with their biological sex. Duh?!

Absolutely, I'm the same height as Steffi Graf no one has handed me tennis grand slams just because I happen to have a body type that is well suited to tennis. Steffi has her victories because she practiced, trained and made sacrifices to reach the very top of her sport.

She and Kirsty Coventry were great. They gave really clear, evidenced answers to all the questions. I was glad to see Sean Ingle pop up with a question too.

What excellent news.

Yep, and we also don't have categories with eligibility defined by body dimensions or joint flexibility. If we did, he shouldn't be able to identify into a different one.

I seem to remember that Phelps also had a response to lactic acid that meant he could recover very quickly, hence being able to compete in so many events at the same competition (bearing in mind that most events will have heats, semis and finals).

it's also disrespectful to Phelps as it underplays all the hard work he did and the sacrifices he made to become an Olympic champion.

They always seem to forget the Phelps swam against other male Olympic swimmers, who would also have bodies that were very well suited to to elite swimming (if not quite as well suited as Phelps). It wasn't one perfect formed for swimming body v Dave the computer guy, Ian from accounts and Trevor the trucker.

The Phelps Defence has been (mis)used for years. Phelps has physical features (body dimensions, joint flexibility etc) that made swimming the perfect sport for him, but that’s the same for sport at any elite level - and other factors such as access to coaching and training facilities, parental support, financial support etc, make a huge difference to athletes reaching their potential.

The best response to the Phelps argument is to point out that there is a female Phelps, Katie Ledecki.

Ledecki would not win medals without a female category.

So a situation where Phelps gets his just rewards in terms of medals but Ledecki doesn't is just pure sexism writ large.