Women 'should be there too' says Nordic combined skier frozen out of Games

Record ID: 1660083

  • Title: Women 'should be there too' says Nordic combined skier frozen out of Games
  • Date: 14th February 2022
  • Summary: GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 13, 2022) (REUTERS) (ORIGINALLY SHOT IN PORTRAIT) (SOUNDBITE)(English) U.S. SKIER TARA GERAGHTY-MOATS, SAYING: "They said that women's Nordic combined isn't a developed enough sport and not enough competitors, which is sort of a strange argument given the fact that there are more competitors in women's Nordic combined than say for
  • Embargoed: 28th February 2022 06:26
  • Keywords: Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics FIS IOC Nordic Combined Tara Geraghty-Moats cross-country gender equality ski jump women's rights
  • Location: GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN AND OBERSTDORF, GERMANY AND ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA
  • City: GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN AND OBERSTDORF, GERMANY AND ZHANGJIAKOU, CHINA
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Olympics,Sport
  • Reuters ID: LVA009FYNAERJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Tara Geraghty-Moats will watch the Nordic combined large hill final on Tuesday (February 15) but it will be with gritted teeth as the World Cup winner again contemplates the injustice of women being excluded from her chosen sport at the Olympics.
    The American did tune in for last week's opening event and could not help but be caught up in the excitement of German Vinzenz Geiger's incredible late surge to glory.
    "It was an awesome race and when I see a lot of the people I've trained or competed with, or my friends, at the Olympics, first off, I'm really proud of them and it's really amazing to see them there," Geraghty-Moats told Reuters in an interview on Sunday (February 13).
    "But, yeah, I can't watch them without thinking 'why am I not there? Why don't I get a chance for a medal? Why I don't have this experience?' It's very bizarre."
    The bald reason is that the International Olympic Committee decided in 2018 that women's Nordic combined was not a developed-enough sport to take a slot in Beijing - leaving it as the only Winter Olympic discipline not to have a women's event.
    The sport's governing body the FIS disagrees, and introduced a World Cup in 2020, which Geraghty-Moats won, albeit in a season decimated by COVID-19.
    "The problem with women's Nordic combined is that the IOC is treating it like a new sport and it's not," Geraghty-Moats said from her training base in Germany.
    "They are saying it's a niche sport, which is a strange argument given that there are more women competitors than say for luge or aerial skiing. The Olympics has niche sports and that's one of the things that make it special. That is not a valid excuse to have gender inequality in the Games."
    The IOC is likely to discuss the line-up for the 2026 Games in Milan-Cortina this June but Geraghty-Moats is not sure things are about to change.
    Geraghty-Moats has always kept her hand in across the various Nordic disciplines, competing in separate cross-country, ski-jumping and biathlon events and last year, at the age of 28, found herself at something of a career crossroads and decided to switch to biathlon.
    The lack of financial and logistical support available from USA Nordic combined, and the lack of sponsorship opportunities in a non-Olympic sport, left her continually having to fund herself and unable to prepare properly for races, but the backing of USA Biathlon has made a professional career viable again.
    But it has been tough for Geraghty-Moats to turn her back on the sport she fell in love with as a youngster - something of an usual passion for someone brought up in north-eastern United States rather than in its northern European heartlands.
    (Production: Mitch Phillips, Kai Pfaffenbach, Marco Djurica, Athit Perawongmetha, Ilze Filks)
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