Losing My Perspicacity, August 2, 2024

Happy Free Friday and welcome back to Losing My Perspicacity.

As I said earlier in the week, I never set out to have LMP be a women’s sports-only newsletter (or even a sports-only newsletter). But right now, the Olympics are occupying most of my discretionary free time, so that’s what I find myself writing about. Besides, who wants to think and write about JD Vance on Donald Trump every day? For me, the Olympics (and yes, they are problematic in many ways) have been a nice retreat in the eye of the hurricane, allowing us to forget how divided the US is right now and focus on the dozens of feel-good stories coming out of the Games.

LMP is entirely funded by reader subscriptions, and it’s also my main source of income, so I’d love you to consider upgrading to a premium subscription for less than the cost of a froofy Starbucks drink a month! What a deal! And, if you’ve donated at least $20 to Kamala Harris’ campaign, just shoot me a screenshot of your donation and I’ll gift you a free one-month subscription.

Today, a woman punches another woman in boxing, chaos ensues; Evan Gershkovich is free; Women are dominating in Paris; Someone was finally forced to swim in the Seine; and what’s on tap for today at the Olympics.

Here we go:

The culture wars have arrived at the Olympics

It’s been a week since the Olympic Games opened and, outside of the weirdos who got all flustered over the “Satanic” Opening Ceremonies (Christianity isn’t the only religion in the world!), it’s been a pretty nice week of celebration and togetherness — the first Olympic Games with fans since the Pandemic.

Of course, it was not to last, as the racial and gender purity crowd has shown up in force to demean, denigrate, and misgender Algerian boxer Imane Khelif. Khelif was assigned “female” at birth and raised as a girl. She was not allowed to box at a young age because her father thought girls taking part in boxing was inappropriate. In 2018, Khelif finished 17th in the AIBA Boxing World Championships, having been eliminated in the first round by another female boxer. She reached the finals in 2022, but was defeated by Ireland’s Amy Broadhurst. Her overall record is 51-9. Certainly very good, but we’re not talking about Mike Tyson here. She has always competed against women and has been beaten by women.

In 2023, Khelif was disqualified by the IBA (International Boxing Association), ostensibly for having too much testosterone in her system. IBA also said that DNA testing proved that Khelif had both X and Y chromosomes, making her ineligible to compete against women, though we should note that the IOC has denied these allegations and Khelif has never spoken publicly about her chromosomal makeup. However, there are medical conditions in which women have been found to have Y chromosomes. Swyer syndrome, for example:

I’m not privy to the details of Khelif’s medical background and, frankly, it’s no one’s business but hers. The fact that someone blabbed about Khelif’s alleged medical history to the press is cruel and petty.

Meanwhile, IBA was stripped of its governing body status by the IOC over corruption and finance issues, including allegations of rigged outcomes during the Rio Games in 2016. I didn’t hear anyone screaming about “fairness” in women’s sports when that was happening. Anyway, the IOC, who are rarely, if ever, on the right side of things, called the IBA’s decision to ban Khelif and another woman from competing “arbitrary” and announced that the two women would be allowed to compete in Paris.

Fast forward to Wednesday, when this happened:

Italian boxer Angela Carini quit 46 seconds into her bout with Khelif, saying she’d “never been hit so hard in my life.” She went on to talk about her dream of winning a medal to honor her deceased father was over. This, of course, sent JK Rowling, Riley Gaines (no relation to the fantastic Rowdy Gaines), and the rest of the TERF brigade into overdrive.

Funny, I’ve never heard Riley Gaines advocate to stop violence against women outside of her talking points about trans women competing in sports.

So there are a lot of things to say here: 1) The IOC was well aware of Khelif’s medical status when they decided to allow her to compete; 2) 90 percent of the anti-woke crowd is misidentifying Khelif as “trans” and misgendering her by calling her a “biological male.” She is neither of those things. 3) Like I said, Khelif is not Mike Tyson. She’s not unbeatable. She’s been beaten by many women in the past. The same goes for Lia Thomas, whose college swim records have already been broken by (checks notes) other women. And finally, 4) I’m sorry that Carini was shocked by how hard she was punched in the face during a boxing match. But given that other women have beaten Khelif and certainly taken punches from her, maybe this is an Angela Carini problem and not an Imane Khelif problem.

I’ve written before that the general assumption that all male athletes are better than all female athletes is simply untrue. Katie Ledecky routinely trains against and beats male colleagues. Thomas won one NCAA title, true, but she tied for 5th in another race. She set no NCAA records, meaning that other women are and have been faster than she is. And the idea that any man can beat any woman in the world at any given time is just stupid. Moreover, recent research has suggested that even trans women aren’t at as much of an advantage as people think, and are even at a disadvantage in some aspects of sports.

Here are some key findings from a recent study:

And let’s talk about innate physical advantages some athletes have. I’d venture a guess that most dominant athletes, like Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, and anyone who plays in the NBA have biological advantages over their competitors. That Phelps’ has an inordinately large wingspan for his height and that his body produces less lactic acid than his competitors is widely known. He also has size 14 feet, which act as flippers, and enormous hands that act like paddles, and is double-jointed in his ankles, elbows, and shoulders. I would have loved to have been a 4’8, 105-lb gymnast like Simone Biles, but I was taller than that by the time I reached 5th grade, and I just kept growing. Tony Gwynn had 20/10 vision. Miguel Indurain had much larger lungs than his average competitor. Shaquille O’Neal is over 7’1 tall. Why do we accept some “biological advantages” and not others?

I’m sick and tired of bigots using “protecting women” as a guise for excluding and “othering” the most vulnerable members of our society. As so many of us keep saying, most of these anti-woke culture warriors never said a damn thing about women’s sports or protecting women before it became a political football. And it’s bizarre to see people who are hell-bent on upholding the patriarchy claim to be the only ones caring about women.

Jake Paul? Didn’t you get accused of sexual misconduct by at least two women? Have a seat and be quiet.

But what about Angela Carini’s dream? Well, what about Imane Khelif’s dream? Why is one person’s dream more important than the others? My father died 18 months ago, so I shouldn't have to compete against Simone Biles or any other gymnasts to win gold in gymnastics. After all, my Dad would have loved to see me compete again and win gold. At 51.

In conclusion, Imane Khelif has every right to compete in a sport as the gender she was raised as, identifies as, and which the IOC has accepted her as. Biological advantages in sports are not nearly as cut and dried as the general public would like to believe, and anyway, they are everywhere in sports. None of this is about a level playing field (which is such a false promise; there are no level playing fields in sports); it’s about exclusionary politics, the demonization of women, and cruelty. Allowing men to decide who is a woman and who isn’t harms all of us.

Evan Gershkovich is free

I was very happy to hear this news yesterday and thrilled for Evan’s colleagues at the WSJ (aka “The Wall”), who never gave up on him.

Here’s what the White House had to say about the exchange that brought Gershkovich and others home:

Welcome home, everyone!

Women are killing it in Paris

We had a huge number of American women kicking ass and taking names in Paris yesterday, including Simone Biles, just the third woman to win multiple all-around titles and the first to do it in non-consecutive Games. Suni Lee, who won all-around in 2021, took the bronze. Katie Ledecky is officially the most decorated female athlete in American history, picking up a silver medal with the 4 × 200M relay team. Kate Douglass won the 200M breaststroke. The USA Women’s Basketball Team improved to 2-0 and advanced to the knockout stage with an 87-74 win over Belgium. Caroline Marks advanced to the semifinals of the surfing competition after a win over Australia’s Tyler Wright. Beach volleyball’s Kristen Nuss and Taryn Kloth remain undefeated. The US fencers advanced to the women’s team finals.

But Australia has managed to take gender equity one step further. While the US leads Australia in total medals and gold medals, the Aussies can brag that every single gold medal won for Team Oz in Paris, so far, was won by a woman.

Good on ya, ladies!

Welp, they swam in the Seine

I’ve been obsessively following the open-water swimming events, mostly to see if the pipe dream of having the swimming marathon and triathlon in the Seine would actually come to fruition. If you’ve been reading LMP in the ramp-up to the Games, you know that the Seine has been polluted, largely with sewage, for hundreds of years. France spent $1.4 billion to make the water clean enough to swim in, and someone was going to swim in it, dammit.

The women’s triathlon apparently drew the short end of the stick. Here’s how it went.

“I drank a lot of water, so tomorrow we’ll see if I’m sick or not.” That’s the definition of sucking it up and getting through it, but yeeeeech.

While Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo ultimately made good on her promise to swim in the Seine to prove it was safe, I still don’t think President Emmanual Macron had fulfilled his promise to do the same. My guess is that he’s praying everyone forgets about it. I can’t even bring myself to post this video of a guy pointing out all the feminine hygiene products floating on the Seine on July 30, but I’ll link it in case you really, really want to see it.

Coming up Friday in Paris:

Here are some of the highlights happening today in Paris:

• Track and Field starts! We’ve got qualifiers for men’s decathlon, men’s hammer throw, and women’s high jump and women’s 100M starting at 4:00 am ET

• Men’s synchro springboard diving final is live at 5:00 am ET

• Swimming: Men’s 100M butterfly, women’s 200M IM, women’s 800M free, Mixed 4 × 100M medley all get going around 6:00 am ET

• USA women’s 3×3 basketball plays France at 7:00 am ET

• The USA plays in men’s beach volleyball at 9:00 am ET

• US Men’s soccer takes on Morocco at 9:00 am ET

• Women’s Water Polo takes on France at 12:30 ET

There’s also lots of sailing, archery, trampoline, and boxing happening, if any of those sports are your jam.

I’ll leave you today with Henrik Christiansen, a Norwegian swimmer who has a serious problem with the muffins in the Olympic Village.

Have a great weekend!