Two internet events occurred this week that were related and require action. The first is an essay written by Jane Copland. Here is the link.

https://janecopland.com/2019/07/26/go-slower/

Jane tells the story of a sexist event that happened to her recently while she was out running on a trail along the River Thames just outside of London. Believe me Jane knows quite a bit about the sexist behaviour inflicted on female athletes. I know that’s true because I was her coach until she left New Zealand to swim on a four year swimming scholarship at Washington State University.

In fact some of the best swimmers I have coached have been women – Jane, Alison, Rhi, Toni, Nichola, Penny and another Jane. Those seven have all won national championships or set national records or been national representatives. In most cases they did all three.

In every case the problems they faced and had to overcome were vastly more difficult than their male team mates.

Take, for example, the guys in the gym who insisted they reduce the weights they were lifting, “because they were girls”. Or the guy who told Toni she should stop doing chin-ups because it was bad for childbirth. Or the idiots who risk a heart attack trying to prevent a woman passing them and then hurl abuse when they realise it is a lost cause. Or the four surf club morons who in an empty pool jumped into Toni’s lane for the sole purpose of disrupting the training of a woman that could swim faster than them.  Or the guys on a track in Hawke’s Bay who chose to deliberately walk in the lane Alison was using to run a set of 10×200. Or the guy riding his bike in Dunedin who was passed by Alison running and exclaimed, “Oh my God, that’s all I need”. Or the whistles and offers of sexual “favours” athletic women endure as a matter of course. Or the books that instruct women that their training load should be less than men.

I’ve seen all that and much more. And so discrimination is not just about prize money not being equal. It’s not only about a President of Athletics New Zealand who said, “A woman should never be selected for the Olympic Games if a good man was available.”

It is about an endless stream of putdowns that women must endure; putdowns that men never experience. It is unfair. It is unjust. It is wrong. Climbing the sporting mountain is difficult enough without male morons making it even more difficult.

And with that thought in mind I absolutely support an initiative sent to me in an email I received two days ago. The cause is a good one and long overdue. Well worth your backing. Well worth changing sport for the better.

Here is what the email said.