Why you shouldn't watch the Winter Olympics

[annodomini]

There is so much wrong with all of this that I don't know where to start; I'll just let the quotes do the talking.Lindsey Van holds the record - among both men and women - for the longest jump off of Whistler, B.C.'s normal ski jump, built for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. The 25-year-old skier trains six days a week, 11 months a year and has been

Comments

[bigbluebackpack]

That's...more brazen than usual.

I try to keep in mind that there may be an other side to the story with this kind of thing, but you may have made an airtight case.

"not appropriate from a medical point of view?" WTF?

[annodomini]

The part that really gets me is the "there is no discrimination, but women can't compete." Er, isn't that the very definition of gender based discrimination? And if they can't support a separate event, how about just not having sex-segregated events and letting women compte with men in the same event? Or are they so worried that a woman might beat the men and can't possibly have that?

And the part about "oh, you shouldn't speak up about discrimination because maybe we'll just decide you're troublemakers and keep you out in future years too" is absolutely appalling.

And yeah, that whole medical point of view thing. So, it's OK for there to be event like luge in which a man was just recently killed due to an excessively difficult and fast course, but god forbid a woman might break a leg in a ski jump, right?

Argh. So frustrating.

[mneme]

Uh, yeah. The easiest way to handle "we only have so many event slots" is to unsegregate the damned event. And the threats, well, speak for themselves.

[joshuanever]

The olympics are such a great idea, to Bad the IOC runs them. It is one of the most corrupt organizations in existence in the western world. Women's ski jumping is not the only thing they keep out for no good reason. Baseball, it might seem strange to rally to support a huge game like baseball, but despite viable and competitive teams from 3 continents it was decided that it was not enough of an international game. (professional leagues in 12 countries) Professional players in the MLB from 21 nations in 2009. In General they are sexist and elitist to the extreme. I find that the IOC is so Euro centric it is a joke. I really wish that the Olympics could continue with out the IOC or any of the national branches there of.