Barely two weeks ago, I wondered if female athletes would receive the same level of recognition and importance as their male counterparts, along with equal media coverage at sports events, particularly the Olympic Games. In hindsight, I wish I hadn't asked this question, as women have indeed received a lot of coverage since the games started, but often for the wrong reasons.
The controversy began with backlash against the opening ceremony. Far-right politicians and conservative Christians worldwide accused a tableau scene of being blasphemous. This scene featured performers of all shapes and colors, including several drag queens and the naked singer-songwriter Philippe Katerine painted in blue. It resembled more of Fellini's "Satyricon" than a blasphemous moment. However, hallucinating like a bad Artificial Intelligence gone rogue and applying to that context their limited knowledge, these esteemed commentators interpreted it as a reference to Leonardo da Vinci’s "Last Supper". Ironically, this wouldn't offend true Christians, as Jesus surrounded himself with all sorts of people, including prostitutes.
Creative director Thomas Jolly denied any connection with "The Last Supper", explaining that the scene, titled "Festivity," represented a feast of Gods, with Dionysus, the god of feasting and wine, and the father of Sequana, the goddess of the River Seine, arriving at the table.
Art experts in France and the Netherlands also clarified the source as the 17th-century Dutch painting "The Feast of the Gods" by Jan van Bijlert. Unfortunately, the damage was already done, and those featured in the scene began receiving online abuse.
Among those targeted was Barbara Butch, DJ and lesbian activist, the central character in the tableau scene. Unmissable in her attire, which included a crown radiating from her head (an accessory that won her comparisons with Apollo, god of the sun in Jan van Bijlert’s painting), she received death, torture, and rape threats online. Thomas Jolly also faced online abuse, prompting French prosecutors to open two inquiries.
You might argue that Barbara Butch isn't an athlete, so she shouldn't be mentioned in a piece about Olympic coverage of women's sports. However, this incident set the tone for further aggressive behavior against women.
Coverage of women’s boxing was particularly toxic. Last week, the controversy surrounding Algerian athlete Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting from Chinese Taipei (Taiwan competes at the Olympics under this name to avoid objections from China) was overwhelming. It wasn't triggered by a sport-related decision but fueled by online critics based on incorrect gender identification allegations. Critics included former US President and current Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, Italian far-right Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Matteo Salvini, and Italian right wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
Last Thursday, Khelif won the women’s 66kg preliminary round match against Italian Angela Carini, who quit 46 seconds into the match due to the pain inflicted by Khelif’s first punch. Frustrated and in pain, Carini refused to shake Khelif's hand.
Soon, things got out of hand on social media rather than on the ring. Trump announced in a speech in Atlanta and then pledged on Truth Social to keep men out of women's sports, while Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed with Riley Gaines, a former collegiate swimmer, who posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, stating "men don't belong in women's sports."
J.K. Rowling, known in recent years for her transphobic views, also called Khelif a man. She commented on a picture showing the Italian athlete crying with Khelif behind her trying to comfort her, saying, "The smirk of a male who knows he's protected by a misogynist sporting establishment, enjoying the distress of a woman he's just punched in the head, and whose life's ambition he's just shattered." J.K. Rowling also attacked Lin on X, ending up being criticized by the Taiwanese community who posted background stories on Lin, explaining the athlete started boxing as a young kid to protect her mother from domestic violence.
Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni expressed her disappointment, claiming that Khelif had high testosterone levels and should not have been allowed to compete. Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance also took to X, dragging Kamala Harris into the controversy: "This is where Kamala Harris's ideas about gender lead: to a grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match. This is disgusting, and all of our leaders should condemn it."
In Italy the backlash started before the match with Mr Salvini, who, having abandoned his geographical sweatshirts that served him as a GPS device to orientate himself in space and now tuned into Putin propaganda channels that distort his (already distorted) views and send him messages against the LGBT+ community, claimed on social media the Italian boxer had to fight against a trans woman and blamed woke ideology.
The problem with all this uproar is that both Lin and Khelif are not transgender women; they were born female and have not changed their identities. Both boxed without incident at the Tokyo Olympic Games. However, they were disqualified from competing with women at a 2023 International Boxing Association (IBA) tournament after failing an unspecified eligibility test that wasn't made public. At the time IBA President Umar Kremlev told the Russian news agency Tass that a DNA test showed the athletes had sufficient XY chromosomes to disqualify them from the women's event. Incidentally, the decision came shortly after Khelif beat Russian boxer Azalia Amineva, who was previously undefeated.
While the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has withdrawn recognition from the IBA, citing corruption concerns, Khelif and Lin were cleared by the IOC to compete in the women's 66-kilogram and women's 57-kilogram matches respectively at the Paris Games.
In the meantime, the IBA has lost further credibility as an impartial governing body after offering Carini, her coach, and the Italian Boxing Federation (FPI) $100,000 as if the athlete had won the match. Carini and the federation refused, and Carini has since apologized in the Italian daily La Gazzetta dello Sport for not shaking Khelif’s hand. She also expressed regret for what happened and said she would like to hug her.
This controversy, fueled by unnecessary commentators with too much time on their hands and too eager to jump on the anti-trans bandwagon, caused significant stress for everyone involved (consider that Khelif comes from Algeria, where homosexuality is outlawed and where there is no LGBTQ+ culture, so raising suspicions that she is a trans woman may have had dangerous repercussions).
Maybe the best comment was offered by transgender and nonbinary Olympic American runner Nikki Hiltz who wrote in an Instagram story last week. "Anti-trans rhetoric is anti-woman. These people aren't 'protecting women's sports,' they are enforcing rigid gender norms and anyone who doesn't fit perfectly into those norms is targeted and vilified."
In the meantime, Khelif beat Hungarian Anna Luca Hamori on Saturday, securing Algeria's first Olympic boxing medal since 2000. Lin also won, defeating Svetlana Kamenova Staneva of Bulgaria in a featherweight quarter-final on Sunday.
After her match, Khelif stated to the media, "I want to tell the entire world that I am a female, and I will remain a female," a statement that shouldn't have been necessary, as nobody should be obliged to reassure the world about their sexuality.
There have been other incidents involving women: at the Tokyo Olympics, US gymnastics star Simone Biles decided to retire to preserve her physical and mental health. At the time, JD Vance attacked her on Fox News, stating, "I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people not for moments of strength."
At the Paris Olympic Games, Biles returned stronger than ever. The 27-year-old athlete became the most decorated gymnast in American history, winning three gold medals and a silver medal, bringing her total tally to 11 medals - seven golds, two bronze, and two silver. Biles marked her return to splendid form; this girl can definitely fly. Yet, instead of thanking her for making gymnastics fabulous while teaching us that taking a break and taking care of ourselves is more important than playing heroes, some commentators complained about her "messy" hair on social media. Why do they focus on her hair rather than on the fact that she can perform a Yurchenko double pike, the most difficult vault in women's gymnastics, eventually renamed the Biles II?
Like Biles at the Tokyo Olympics also Italian swimmer Benedetta Pilato, 19, received some nasty comments: finishing in the fourth place in the 100m breaststrokes, she claimed she was happy about her achievement, which obviously unleashed trolls wondering how could she still be happy when she had actually lost.
But some misogynistic behavior also came from TV commentators: Bob Ballard, a commentator for Eurosport, addressed the Australian women's national swimming team as they received the gold medal for winning the 4x100 freestyle relay on the first day of the swimming trials, stating that they were late leaving the venue as they were doing their make-up. Eurosport immediately removed him from their list of commentators.
Yet there are also women raising two fingers to trolls. American Olympic rugby player Ilona Maher, 27, went viral for sharing snaps of her cellulite online and reminding women that it's natural to have it, even for athletes. "Rockin' my cellulite," the Olympic medallist added.
Abuse, misinformation, trolls, and attacks - amid all this confusion, one thing is clear: everything depends on what a woman is allowed to be. You're a powerful athlete at the Olympic Games, but you must have perfect hair. You should be strong and muscular, but cellulite is bad. You should be indomitable yet feminine, otherwise you'll be labeled as a trans woman, a man, or even a monster (sadly, the Carini/Khelif match was compared to a Beauty and the Beast situation by trolls online). I'm dreading tuning in to see any matches now. I'm dreading the closing ceremony and the Paralympics, wondering if there will be more comments on able and disabled bodies.
As a woman and spectator, I find all these controversies and comments depressing and exhausting. What if we actually focused on the sport and not on the look and learnt to celebrate winning and losing as well?
Indeed at these Olympic Games there have been women who won even without actually winning a medal: Afghanistan's 100m sprinter Kimia Yousofi, 28, sent a powerful message to Afghan women. As part of the six-person Afghan team competing in Paris - three men and three women - she finished last in her 100-meter preliminary heat.
Afterwards, she turned the bib with her name on to reveal the words “Education," "Sport" and "Our rights" in black, green and red, the colors of the Afghan flag, a message to Afghan girls not to give up and not to let others decide for them.
Yousofi bore her country’s flag at the Tokyo Games but fled to Iran when the Taliban took control in 2021 and then relocated to Australia as a refugee. Her team in Paris was selected by the Afghanistan Olympic Committee, which operates outside the country, but the Taliban only recognize the three men in the team.
With her face as expressive as Renée Jeanne "Maria" Falconetti as Joan of Arc in Carl Theodor Dreyer's silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc), Yousofi stood as a heroine without a medal, but still a heroine, in a world full of self-righteous men and women with too much time on their hands commenting from the safety of their homes and behind the security of a screen. Holding the message, Yousofi reminded us that sport is a vehicle for positive and empowering messages and not a weapon to belittle and offend athletes.
