Norway’s girls’s seashore handball workforce was fined by the European Handball Federation on Monday, after gamers wore shorts, as an alternative of the required bikini bottoms, throughout a recreation over the weekend.
The Worldwide Handball Federation requires girls to put on bikini bottoms “with an in depth match and reduce on an upward angle towards the highest of the leg.” The perimeters of the bikini bottoms have to be not more than 4 inches. Males, alternatively, can put on shorts so long as 4 inches above their knees so long as they’re “not too saggy.”
A spokeswoman for the Worldwide Handball Federation, Jessica Rockstroh, stated on Tuesday that she didn’t know the explanation for the foundations. “We’re trying into it internally,” she stated.
Ms. Rockstroh stated that the group’s focus in the mean time was on the Olympics, not uniforms, and that the group had not obtained official complaints beforehand. She later stated Norway was the one nation that had formally complained. “Globally we all know that different international locations prefer to play in bikinis, for instance, particularly in South America,” she stated.
Norway’s workforce had been planning for weeks to flout the foundations to level out the double normal for feminine athletes. The gamers wore shorts for Sunday’s bronze medal recreation towards Spain on the European Seashore Handball Championships in Varna, Bulgaria.
“I don’t see why we will’t play in shorts,” stated Martine Welfler, one of many Norwegian gamers. “With a lot physique shaming and stuff like that as of late, you must have the ability to put on a bit of bit extra whenever you play.”
Every Norwegian participant was fined 150 euros (about $177), for a complete high quality of €1,500.
Kare Geir Lio, the pinnacle of the Norwegian Handball Federation, stated the group would pay the high quality. He stated Norway had repeatedly complained concerning the bikini backside requirement to the worldwide federation since 2006. “Nothing has occurred,” he stated.
Feminine athletes have spoken out towards the double requirements for his or her uniforms many occasions in latest many years. Ladies are required to put on extra revealing outfits in a number of sports activities, together with monitor and discipline, seashore volleyball and tennis. In 2011, the Badminton World Federation decreed that girls should put on skirts or clothes to play on the elite stage in an effort to assist revive flagging curiosity in girls’s badminton.
In some instances, girls have been fined for his or her uniforms being too lengthy. In others, the uniforms have been too quick.
Throughout the English monitor championships over the weekend, the Paralympian sprinter and long-jumper Olivia Breen stated she was advised by an official that the working briefs she was sporting had been inappropriate.
“I used to be simply chatting with my teammate, actually joyful, and this official got here as much as me and she or he was like, ‘Can I converse to you Olivia?’” Ms. Breen stated in an interview Tuesday. “She was identical to, ‘I feel your briefs are too revealing and I feel you must take into account shopping for a brand new pair of shorts.’”
Ms. Breen stated she was greatly surprised: “My first response was ‘are you joking?” And she or he simply stated ‘No, I’m not. And I feel you must actually take into account shopping for a pair of shorts.’”
The alternate left Ms. Breen and her teammate speechless, she added. “It simply made me so indignant,” she stated. “We shouldn’t be advised what we will put on and what we will’t put on. Why would you make a remark like that?”
Mr. Lio, of the Norwegian Handball Federation, stated there was no motive girls must be required to put on bikini bottoms in video games. “Ladies ought to have the proper to have a uniform they assume is appropriate for performing of their sport,” he stated.
In a 2006 letter to the Worldwide Handball Federation, Norway’s handball federation stated the requirement for girls to put on bikini bottoms was insensitive to some international locations’ cultural norms and may very well be embarrassing for many who didn’t need a lot of their our bodies uncovered, in line with a replica seen by The New York Occasions. In handball, a sport that mixes parts of soccer and basketball, goalkeepers must be allowed to put on less-revealing uniforms as a result of they use all elements of their our bodies to dam photographs, the letter argued.
Thomas Schoeneich, spokesman for the European Handball Federation, stated on Tuesday that the group was merely imposing guidelines set by the worldwide federation. “Change can solely occur on an Worldwide Handball Federation stage,” he stated.
The Norwegian Handball Federation instructed altering the uniform necessities for feminine athletes throughout a gathering of the European Handball Federation in April. The movement was anticipated to be mentioned by the Worldwide Handball Federation in November, Mr. Schoeneich stated.
Ms. Welfler, the Norwegian handball participant, stated there have been gamers in Norway who didn’t need to compete at a global stage due to uniform necessities. (In home tournaments, Norwegian gamers can put on shorts.)
“That’s actually unhappy as a result of perhaps one of the best gamers gained’t take part,” she stated. She additionally stated feminine gamers had been uninterested in being scrutinized in skimpy apparel. The main target must be on the sport, she stated.
Janice Forsyth, an affiliate professor of sociology at Western College in Canada and the previous director of the college’s Worldwide Heart for Olympic Research, stated that sure uniforms, particularly in monitor and discipline and swimming, may give athletes an edge. However within the case of seashore handball, sporting shorts as an alternative of bikinis wouldn’t enable athletes to leap greater or transfer sooner within the sand.
“I don’t see how that argument holds any weight,” she stated. “To say that sporting much less clothes, as the ladies are required to do, permits them to be higher athletes is simply foolish.”
Amanda Morris contributed reporting.