"It is a real shame that beach handball is on the front pages of the newspapers for this and not for the fact that we have brought a bronze from a European championship. But in the end, everyone is free to defend their right to dress However you want". This is the opinion that
Asunción Batista,
world champion, European medalist, player of the GEA AM Team Almería and of the Spanish team (the Warriors of the Arena)
deserves
, the controversy caused by the rebellion of the Norwegian team of this sport against the equipment imposed by the European Handball Federation (IHF).
The aforementioned
regulations
require players to wear "
bikinis with a tight size
and cut at an upward angle towards the upper part of the leg." And if this were not enough (or rather a lot, at least from the point of view of the Federation) it also establishes that "the side must have a
maximum
width
of 10 centimeters."
The controversy is not new, neither in this nor in other sports, as we are reminded from the
Spanish Handball Federation.
In fact, the
Spanish regulations
changed in 2014 (it is true that after a tug of war with the
Higher Sports Council,
which saw signs of sexism in the equipment imposed by the IHF).
Since then, as we read in its regulations regarding equipment, "each team must necessarily go to the sports facilities provided with three complete kits of different colors each, being
sleeveless shirts and pants up to mid-thigh,
both for the
male and female teams;
following the agreement reached for women's clothing by the Higher Sports Council in 2014. However, the kits authorized by the IHF in its July 2014 regulations may also be used. "Thus, in Spain, the choice of one or another kit in national matches "depends on each team.
There are those who play with a shirt, others with shorts.
In my team (the GEA AM Team Almería), as we compete a lot outside of Spain, we go in a bikini, "explains Asunción Batista.
It rains on the wet, also on the bikinis
What has happened is inevitably reminiscent of the controversy of a few years ago about the equipment of
beach volleyball
players
,
forced since the Sydney Olympics by the
International Volleyball Federation,
the FIVB, to wear bikini in their competitions. Among other things, its
regulations
stipulated that
the lower part
could not have a
width greater than 6 cm at the hips,
a 'measure' very difficult to justify from any point of view other than making the players more attractive. The issue, which made rivers of ink flow, was settled at the
2012 London Games,
when the possibility of choosing from a wider range of 'outfits' was opened,
shorts up to 3 cm above the knee
and
tops with or without sleeves
(the measure was justified for reasons of respect for the culture and religion of teams such as Muslims, which would hardly have agreed to compete with the previous FIVB requirements.
The question that nobody seems to ask, with that one or with the new controversy is: from the point of view of functionality does it make any sense that the players of these disciplines play in bikini?
Is it comfortable to do so at least?
"For me it is," Asun Batista responds, "because you want to or not, you're on the beach, and it's hot. Another thing is if you feel
'comfortable' psychologically.
I am, but the truth is that the players don't we get older, bodies change, and there comes a time when you don't feel comfortable in a panties and a top. And then there is the fact that boys play in t-shirts ... ".
So it is easy, more than easy, to think in terms of
comparative tort.
A lot of fabric to cut (or just the opposite)
You might think that these 'little scandals' that erupt from time to time and that seem to be traced to each other, are the result of an
increasingly incisive feminism
, that not a single one happens ... But it is that almost all recent cases show that it is the federations -controlled mainly by men- that are applying anachronistic criteria, or at least very inattentive to the general feeling (at least the female one) when it comes to 'attacking' the issue of women's kits.
Sir further revealed it, in 2012 the
World Badminton Federation
with a new regulation that stipulated that the players of the international circuit
had to wear skirts or dresses.
In this way his clothes "would make sport more attractive." The criticisms were immediate, normal, and they backed off. But it is that two years before, the
International Basketball Federation, the
powerful FIBA, had also proposed to modify the women's kit and make the uniforms glued to the skin. His own secretary general,
Patrick Baumann,
defended the proposal with phrases such as "they are great athletes, but also very beautiful athletes, and there are no reasons not to show it" or "we are not talking about going towards the beach volleyball uniform, but about making it comfortable, but more feminine" .
With forgiveness: can you make some older comments?
WOMEN ARE MISSING IN THE FEDERATIONS
Pilar Calvo,
general secretary of the Association for Women in Professional Sports gives some keys to understand why we must still attend this type of conflict that has its origin in a sexist view (whether conscious or unconscious, which is irrelevant) from the own federations of certain sports: "The main problem is that given that
women are underrepresented
in the governing bodies of the federations, they have
almost no influence
on the decision-making process on this issue and on all others."
But there is more.
It may be that in sports like tennis, beach volleyball or beach handball the problem is in the difference, but it is that in other sports ... it is just in the opposite place.
"The proportion between female and male licenses is 20% -80% respectively, so
in many clubs or
territorial
federations
they only have
one uniform, the male one,
and women have to wear theirs, with their sizes. and your court. Thus, we have, on the one hand, the athletes who wear
hyperexualized female uniforms
and, on the other, those who
go like puppets
in their uniforms. We would have to find a suitable middle ground ", asks Pilar Calvo.
And they ... what do they think?
A current, sensitive or even ingenious perspective is not exactly what is most abundant, it seems, in the decision-making bodies of the great sports entities. Just take a look at the photo of the presentation of the 'innocent'
Spanish Olympic kit
to realize this. In the "elegant" version, they wear trousers and they wear a
red
miniskirt
-although 'very modest'-
dress
. Did no one think, simply to avoid possible suspicions, to include a second version of the female who wore pants?
What is an unimportant detail? We are in a time where details add and subtract that is terrifying, so it would be better for the 'gentlemen of sport' to be a little more detailed. Of course, it would also be better for all of us to open our ears to the voices of the athletes themselves, who are the ones who have the most to say, if they feel like it, of course, about it.
"We need to wear a bikini.
You don't want to wear baggy clothes and lose yourself inside it. We have come up with a formula that is functional and daring at the same time," American beach volleyball champion
Kerri Walsh
said a few years ago
when the controversy over her uniform. His compatriot
Denis Johns
said just the opposite:
"The federation wants us to be sexy"
(Why? To attract an audience that in turn attracts advertisers, at the end of the chain, beyond morals or any other criteria, money always shines).
What do Spanish beach handball players say about the dress code imposed by the IHF in their European competitions?
"The truth is that it
is an issue that does not concern us,
we do not even talk about it. We are where we are, to compete," replies veteran Asunción Batista.
Well, that, a bit of balance, please, what would Pilar Calvo ask for.
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