Though the FasterSkier team would select other highlights from the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games, one of the most read articles we produced featured the responses of members of the ski community to a story published on February 8th by the New York Times, which included the following quote:
“In a sport that has so many women with massive shoulders and thighs, Diggins looks like a sprite in her racing suit, and it’s not clear exactly where she gets her power. But the power is there, as she flies up hills, and comes off climactic turns with a burst. On the downhills, she tucks low and cuts through the air.”
Following the initial backlash sparked by the quote has prompted a number of insightful conversations – and questions – on how athletes, men and women, are portrayed by the media, whether there is room for descriptions or comparisons of athletes’ bodies to narrate a scene for a reader, and how the landscape of sports media has shifted with time.
For this discussion, FasterSkier brought together a panel that spans both the athlete and media perspective on the issue.
Perhaps needing the least introduction for this audience, the first voice you’ll hear belongs to Rosie Brennan. In addition to her role as one of the top American cross country skiers for more than a decade, Brennan is also an advocate for the organization Voice in Sport which provides mentorship for developing female athletes across all sports. And she was a member of the women’s Olympic skate sprint final in Zhangjiakou, taking fourth place just behind Diggins, the race which sparked the discussion in the first place.
The second belongs to professional trail and ultra runner Corrine Malcolm, whose first go at professional endurance sport was in biathlon, from which she retired in 2014 after experiencing overtraining syndrome, likely coupled by relative energy deficiency in sport (). Alongside her athletic career, Malcolm has become a coach for other endurance athletes, while also becoming an advocate for women in sport, and has also engaged with this topic from the media side of the coin while calling some of the top ultra running events worldwide, including the in California and the (UTMB) which begins and ends in Chamonix, France. She’s also the co-host of an engaging podcast called , which dissects challenging topics in the trail and ultra-running space.
