Female American and Swedish cross-country skiers are pushing to race equal distances as men. But some of the sport’s star women remain unconvinced.
Skiers fall while competing during the women's 7.5km + 7.5km skiathlon cross-country skiing competition at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Saturday, Feb. 5, 2022, in Zhangjiakou, China.
In opening competitions, on Saturday and Sunday, the women raced 15 kilometers, while the men raced 30. In relays later in the Games, men will ski legs of 10 kilometers while the women race half as far. And when men ski a 50-kilometer marathon as their last event, women will race 30. The sport’s leaders say discussions about closing that gender gap are happening at the international level. But there’s no time frame or firm commitment yet.
“I think it’s good like it is,” said Teresa Stadlober, the Austrian who won a bronze medal in Saturday’s Olympic opening event. “Men are stronger. They have other muscles than we girls.” But in the sports where women do compete, cross-country skiing has the most events with substantial differences between women and men.
“You’ll occasionally hear, ‘Well, it’s hard to find the TV time for the two genders to go 50K,’ ” said Matt Whitcomb, the U.S. team’s head coach. “Well, find it. Or shorten the men. Otherwise it’s a sexist system.” In Sweden, at least, several stars have weighed in against unequal race distances, with 22-year-old Frida Karlsson last year declaring the difference between the 15- and 30-kilometer skiathlons “almost a little offensive.”
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