It's not enough to win Gold girls - you gotta look sexy!

UK Olympic hopefuls 

As we all prepare for Olympic fever, my good friend Alan pointed out an increase in stories in the main stream media featuring female athlete's and sportswomen, in sexy photo's shoots or in some way getting their kits off.

Why is this, I wonder? 


But then, quite a few inconsistency around women in sport confuse me.....


So far in the prep for the London Olympics there's been, the women's beach volley ball team having adverts on their arse's. They've become bottom billboards, arse adverts, booty product placements.



Then came the proposal that Women boxer's should have to wear skirts so that they can be 'distinguished' from male boxers.


Then last week Caster Semenya qualified for the London Olympics and it reminded me about the appalling 2009 World Championship debacle involving her. 

Caster Semenya, is the South African 800m athlete who won gold with a time  of 1:55.45. A time which is really close to the best male speeds for the same distance, in effect she was closing the a male/female speed differential gap.  

Because of this, she was forced to take a gender test, because as a female runner she was a deemed ....erm... too FAST!

She did not compete for almost a year until the International Association of Athletics Federations cleared her to run again after accepting the conclusions of an expert medical panel, that she is a woman.

Caster Semenya - breaking the world record in 2009

I remember being livid about this at the time, how desperately humiliating for her to gone though especially in front of the worlds media. 


And what was it all for?...because she's very good at something she'd worked hard really to achieve. There was never a question of her cheating in anyway, she was just too fast and this it was said 'aroused suspicion' about her gender.


Err hello!!...she's a runner!....oh but wait, she was getting as fast as the men folk and maybe they didn't like it. 


You can just imagine the patriarch shitting themselves can't you;

"What, she's really that fast?! Impossible she's a woman and a woman can't be nearly as fast at running as a man. Running fast is what men do, there must be some other explanation. Wait, I know she must have a penis, that's why she can run fast! Otherwise it would literally mean women are catching up with us.....and where would that end!"

Imagine the up roar if that had happened in any other profession - 

"Polly solved some really hard mathematical conundrum, but doesn't wear make up....oh it must because she's got a cock!" 

Caster Semenya - Make over

Fact is it wouldn't happen in any other profession, not openly anyway. As whilst the men folk at large have 'broadly' accepted the fact that woman are of equal intellect, they won't let go of the physical. 


I argue with men about this issue all the time and am often surprised by the opinions on woman in sport held by the most open minded, right on men. 


The message is Sports and 'the physical' are very much still the male domain.  


I'm sure one of the other reasons was also because of Caster's physical appearance. She is deemed to look 'masculine', whatever that may mean. 


Again I don't understand this, she is an athlete right?!  She's a runner not a lap dancer, she's not supposed to look sexy or feminine, when did those things become intrinsic to one's running ability?


Athlete's train their bodies, that's what they do, they build strength and muscle that's what there supposed to do. 

I'd bet it's because she's doesn't have have any obvious 'womanly' features e.g. boobs, hips, curves,etc. 


Well neither do the gymnasts wafting their ribbons about, so what's the issue? 


Maybe the issue is men don't compete at wafting ribbon's about so the patriarch doesn't care. 




Or because gymnast's, are being pretty and feminine skipping around, wearing glitter and make up, they MUST be female, even though they haven't got boobs or hips either.

Melanie  Adams - Pole Vaulter

Caster, probably lives on those protein shakes and trains insanely, she can run  a distance of 800m in under two minutes for gods sake, that must mean 0% body fat. 


If all I ate was whey protein and trained that much I wouldn't have any boobs either, quick someone check I still have a vagina!


Honestly, I think the kernel of problem was because Caster was closing the speed gap between male and female athletes and that threatens the masculine claim to physical superiority. The impactions of which question why females and males compete in gender specific groups. As if men and women's running speeds are so close, why shouldn't they compete alongside one another?


No apparently, it's not enough as a woman to be a good athlete you've still got to, 'get em out for the boys!' and be and sexy with it. 


No-one ever suggests any member of a women's beach volley ball team might be a man.....hmmm funny that.

Sophie Horn - Golfer 

Oh I'd love it soooooooo much if the Women's Beach Volley ball team were  secretly pre-op trannies, that would teach all the ogling blokes who only watch to perv at them. 


Maybe if they were trannies, at half time they could drop there keggs altogether and waggle there willy's about wildly shouting...... 

"Do you want to put an advert on this boys"!

Oooh that would almost be worth going to the Olympics to see.