How close are the Winter Olympics to being gender equal?

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Originally published: February 6, 2022

At the 2022 Winter Olympics, 45 percent of athletes are women, a Winter Games record. That’s up from 41 percent four years ago in PyeongChang – and 4.3 percent at the inaugural Olympic Winter Games in 1924.

Beijing will feature the debut of seven new events – one women’s event (monobob) and four mixed gender events – all part of an IOC gender initiative.

As a result, these Olympic Winter Games have been called the most “gender equal” in history.

Still, not every Olympic sport features equal opportunity. And even in the sports that do – take alpine skiing for example – women are often nowhere to be found in decision-making positions.

MORE ON GENDER EQUALITY IN OLYMPIC SPORTS: In alpine skiing, women compete, but that’s about it

There’s also the fact that the binary on which most sports are currently organized – men on one side, women on the other – doesn’t accurately represent society. That line is starting to blur thanks to a handful of pioneering athletes, including U.S. pairs’ figure skater Timothy LeDuc, who will become the first publicly out non-binary athlete to compete at a Winter Games when they skate in Beijing (more below).

As the 2022 Beijing Winter Games get underway, here is a look at a few sports in which progress still needs to be made.


Nordic Combined: The only Olympic sport not open to women

There is only one Olympic sport that is open to men, but not women: Nordic combined, a winter sport that includes both ski jumping and cross-country skiing. It is one of six sports that has been contested at every Winter Olympics in history.

Women’s nordic combined initially seemed like a possibility for Beijing, but when the official Olympic program was revealed, female athletes realized they would need to wait until at least 2026.

“I’ve wanted to compete internationally in Nordic combined since I was about 11 years old. And now I’m 26. And [my sport] isn’t in the Olympics, and I don’t know when it will be in the Olympics,” U.S. athlete Tara Geraghty-Moats told On Her Turf in 2020.

As a result of the uncertainty, Geraghty-Moats recently decided to switch her focus to biathlon.

“Since taking a step back and experiencing the difference of being in a sport where men and women are treated equitably and given equal prize money and equal competition starts,” she wrote on Instagram in December. “I’ve realized how short [sighted], behind the times, and sad it is that FIS Nordic combined is not moving more quickly to have equal prize money and events for men and women.”

MORE ON THE FIGHT FOR GENDER INCLUSION IN NORDIC COMBINED: Not every Olympic sport is open to women (or men)


Cross-Country Skiing: Equal number of events, but unequal distances

In cross-country skiing, there are six races for men and six races for women. But the race programs are far from identical, with men skiing longer distances in four of the six races. The biggest disparity is in the longest distance competition, where men ski 50 kilometers and women ski 30 kilometers.

“On principle, it really bothers me a lot,” U.S. Olympic gold medalist Jessie Diggins told NBC Olympics last spring. “Not only can we ski 50k, but we can ski more.”

That said, Diggins doesn’t necessarily think the women’s race should automatically increase to 50 kilometers.

“I actually think having the race be so long at 50km, it makes the race less spectator friendly,” she said.

Diggins believes races could be organized so that men and women’s events take the same amount of time. In PyeongChang, the winner of the men’s 50km – Finland’s Iivo Niskanen – crossed the line in two hours, eight minutes, while the winner of the women’s 30km – Norway’s Marit Bjorgen – only spent just over one hour and 22 minutes skiing.

“Do we need to race the exact same length? Maybe not. Do we need to race the same amount of time on course? Yeah, I think that’s absolutely reasonable,” Diggins said.

Cross-country isn’t alone in having men and women race different distances: biathlon, short track, and speed skating all have men’s events that are longer than the women’s counterpart. Even in alpine skiing, men’s courses are often longer than women’s courses.

ALSO FROM ON HER TURF: Jessie Diggins’ legacy extends far beyond her historic Olympic gold


Ski Jumping: Eight years after Olympic debut, women want access to the large hill

The 2022 Winter Olympics will marked the third appearance of women’s ski jumping, with Slovenia’s Ursa Bogataj winning gold in the women’s individual normal hill competition.

In addition to the individual event, new for Beijing is a mixed gender team event. So while women now have two medal opportunities, men still have four, thanks to an individual large hill competition and single gender team event.

“It’s eight years later; let’s step some stuff up and get some more equality,” American ski jumper Anna Hoffmann recently told the Wisconsin State Journal.

A women’s large hill event has been added to the World Cup and world championship program in recent years, and competitors hope the Olympics follow suit.

At the final competition before the Beijing Winter Olympics, Norway’s team manager Clas Brede Brathen pointed out that men and women competed on the same large hill at a World Cup in Willingen, Germany.

“It will be a difficult job for those who will argue against the girls jumping on all the slopes after what happened in Willingen,” he said. “There, the girls showed what many of us have said for a long time, that they will show it when they get the opportunity.”

MORE ABOUT GENDER EQUITY IN SKI JUMPING: Women face uphill battle ahead of third Olympics


Hockey: Women’s tournament expands for 2022 Winter Olympics

A total of 10 women’s hockey teams will compete in Beijing, up from 8 at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. (Since 1976, 12 men’s teams have competed in the Olympic tournament, except for 1998 and 2002, when the number was raised to 14.)

Men’s teams also have slightly larger rosters: 25 players, compared to 23 on the women’s side.

There’s also the fact that the coaching pipeline is clearly broken. Of the 10 women’s hockey teams competing in Beijing, all are coached by a man.

But the gender disparity most women’s hockey players are most concerned about is the lack of investment and visibility of the women’s game: from the youth level to the professional landscape.

“In order to make money, you need to spend money,” Olympic hockey gold medalist Kendall Coyne Schofield explained on an episode of “On Her Turf at the Olympics” during last summer’s Tokyo Olympics.

“Everything that it ultimately takes to be professional goes into a proper infrastructure and that ultimately allows the players to put the best product on the ice, court, field, whatever the sport may be,” she said.

MORE WOMEN’S HOCKEY NEWS: U.S. women’s hockey faces test after Decker’s tournament-ending injury


Luge: Is a women’s doubles Olympic event on the horizon?

The doubles event in luge is technically mixed gender, but of the 36 athletes expected to compete in Beijing, all are men.

It seems unlikely the event will truly become mixed gender in the future, so in September, the International Luge Federation (FIL) said it would ask the IOC to add a women’s doubles event to be added to the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.

And earlier this week, a women’s doubles World Championship was held for the first time. Germany won both gold and silver, while the American duo of Chevonne Forgan and Sophia Kirkby took bronze.


Bobsled: Gender equal events, but only for pilots

While men have competed in two Olympic bobsled events for nearly a century, thanks to the addition of a women’s monobob event, the 2022 Winter Olympics will mark the first time that female bobsledders have two medal opportunities.

Female pilots, that is.

While U.S. pilots Elana Meyers Taylor and Kaillie Humphries – among others – advocated for the addition of a four-woman event, a women’s monobob event was added instead.

“It wasn’t what me and Kaillie intended when we started this journey,” Meyers Taylor said in October at the Team USA media summit. “We intended to try and get more women in, to give more medal opportunities to the female brakemen, too.”

Because of the work that goes on behind-the-scenes, female push athletes often spend just as much time preparing for the monobob competition as they do the two-woman event. “We’re increasing the workload, but with less people to do it,” U.S. push athlete Sylvia Hoffman said.

“It takes an entire team just to manage one monobob,” Meyers Taylor said. “Some of the monobob-specific pilots who don’t have brakemen… I have no idea how they get anything done.”

MORE ON THE ADDITION OF MONOBOB: Despite the name, monobob is not a one-woman event


Figure Skating: A sport in which competitors are now “women” – not ladies – and one athlete is breaking gender norms

In the lead-up to the 2022 Winter Olympics, figure skating’s marquee event saw a small – but significant – change. In June, the International Skating Union announced that moving forward, “ladies'” figure skating would be rebranded as “women’s.”

“I thought it was awesome,” said 2021 U.S. champion Mariah Bell, who will make her Olympic debut in Beijing.

MORE ON FIGURE SKATING’S NAME CHANGE: Figure skaters are now “women” instead of “ladies”

“The equivalent of ‘ladies’ would be ‘gentlemen,’ and the ‘men’s’ event has been the ‘men’s’ event for as long as I know,” said Ashley Wagner, a 2014 Olympian who will be a correspondent for Peacock’s Olympic Ice show during the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Also in Beijing, U.S. figure skater Timothy LeDuc will become the first publicly out nonbinary athlete to compete at a Winter Olympics. LeDuc, a two-time national champion, competes in pairs’ skating with Ashley Cain-Gribble.

“As a person that exists and really thrives outside of the binary, it can be very complicated sometimes navigating a gendered sport,” they explained on a recent episode of My New Favorite Olympian.

 

ALSO FROM ON HER TURF: Women of Team USA lead the way at 2022 Winter Olympics

Follow Alex Azzi on Twitter @AlexAzziNBC

2023 LPGA Drive On Championship: How to watch, who’s playing in season’s first full-field event

Jin-young Ko of South Korea and Nelly Korda on the 17th tee during the final round of the CME Group Tour Championship.
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The LPGA Tour makes its return to the Arizona desert this week at the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship at Superstition Mountain Golf and Country Club. The season’s first full-field event features eight of the world’s top 10 players plus a slew of fresh faces as this year’s rookie class gets its first taste of competition as tour members.

This week’s event features 144 players (plus two Monday qualifiers) competing for the $1.75 million prize purse in a 72-hole tournament that will implement the LPGA’s new cutline policy for the first time. Beginning this week, the 36-hole cut will change from the top 70 players and ties to the top 65 and ties advancing to weekend action. The LPGA says it hopes to “establish a faster pace of play” with the change.”

Arizona last hosted the LPGA for the 2019 Bank of Hope Founders Cup at Wildfire Golf Club, where Jin Young Ko earned her first of four LPGA titles that season. The tour last played at Superstition Mountain in the Safeway International from 2004 to 2008, where Hall of Famers Annika Sorenstam (2004, 2005) and Lorena Ochoa (2007, 2008) each won twice, and Juli Inkster won in 2006.

The tournament marks the first of four events over the next five weeks (taking off the week of the Masters, April 7-10) and kicks off the crescendo that’s building to the LPGA’s first major of the season, The Chevron Championship, April 20-23 in its new location at The Woodlands, Texas. The 72-hole LPGA Drive On Championship features 144 players, in addition to two Monday qualifiers, who will compete for a $1.75 million purse.


How to watch the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship

You can watch the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship on Golf Channel, Peacock, NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app. Check out the complete TV and streaming schedule:

  • Thursday, March 23: 9-11 p.m. ET, Golf Channel
  • Friday, March 24: 9-11 p.m. ET, Golf Channel
  • Saturday, March 25: 6-10 p.m. ET, live stream; 7-9 p.m. ET, Golf Channel
  • Sunday, March 26: 6-10 p.m. ET, live stream; 7-9 p.m. ET, Golf Channel

Who’s playing in the 2023 LPGA Drive On Championship

Sitting out this week are world No. 1 Lydia Ko and No. 5 Minjee Lee, but No. 2 Nelly Korda and No. 3 Jin Young Ko are back in action following Ko’s return to the winner’s circle two weeks ago in Singapore, where she held off Korda by two strokes. Also in the field this week are:

  • No. 4 Atthaya Thitikul
  • No. 6 Lexi Thompson
  • No. 7 Brooke Henderson
  • No. 8 In Gee Chun
  • No. 9 Hyo-Joo Kim
  • No. 10 Nasa Hataoka
  • 2022 major winners Ashleigh Buhai, Jennifer Kupcho, Chun, Henderson

Rookies and Epson Tour graduates making their first starts as LPGA members include 20-year-old Lucy Li, a two-time Epson Tour winner who might be best known for playing the 2014 U.S.  Women’s Open as an 11-year-old; South Korea’s Hae Ran Ryu, who took medalist honors at LPGA Q-Series; and 18-year-old Alexa Pano, who finished tied for 21st at Q School to earn her card but might be best known from her role in the 2013 Netflix documentary, “The Short Game.”


Past winners, history of the Drive On Championship

The Drive On Championship was initially created as a series of LPGA events that marked the tour’s back-to-competition efforts following the pandemic. Each tournament used the “Drive On” slogan in support of the tour’s resilience, beginning with the first series event in July 2020 at Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, where Danielle Kang won by one stroke over Celine Boutier. The second event, held in October 2020, replaced the three stops originally scheduled in Asia, and was held at Reynolds Lake Oconee Great Waters Course in Greensboro, Georgia. Ally McDonald captured her career first LPGA title by one stroke over Kang.

The last two “Drive On” events were staged in Florida, at Golden Ocala Golf Club (Ocala) in March 2021 and at Crown Colony Golf Club (Fort Myers) in February 2022. Austin Ernst cruised to her third career title at the 2021 edition, beating Jennifer Kupcho by five shots. The 2022 tournament marked a fresh start for the event (no longer including results or records from the 2020 and 2021 events), where Leona Maguire became the first Irish winner on tour with her victory in 2022.


Last year at the Drive On Championship

Ireland’s Leona Maguire gifted her mom and early birthday present with her first career win at the 2022 LPGA Drive On Championship. A 27-year-old Maguire, a standout at Duke and former No. 1 amateur, carded a final-round 67 to finish at 18-under 198 and won the 54-hole event by three strokes over Lexi Thompson. She became the first woman from Ireland to win on tour, and her 198 tied her career-best 54-hole score.


More about Superstition Mountain

Superstition Mountain’s Prospector Golf Course opened in 1998 and was a combined design effort by Jack Nicklaus and his son Gary. The course plays as a par-72 and stretches to 7,225 yards in length, with the women playing it at 6,526 yards. The course was home of the LPGA Safeway International from 2004-08, and was recently selected by Golfweek as one of the “Top 100 Residential Courses.”

Of note, Superstition Mountain is a female-owned facility, originally purchased in 2009 by Susan Hladky and her husband James, who died in 2011. Hladky has made a point of opening her courses to women and college players, twice hosting U.S. Women’s Open qualifying and the site of a 2025 NCAA women’s regional tournament. She’s also given membership to eight LPGA players, who play out of the club: Carlota Ciganda, Mina Harigae, Dana Finkelstein, Jaclyn Lee, Charlotte Thomas, Caroline Inglis, Jennifer Kupcho and Brianna Do.

MORE FROM ON HER TURF: 2023 March Madness — Utah Utes engineer dramatic turnaround for third-ever Sweet 16 appearance

2023 March Madness: Utah Utes engineer dramatic turnaround for third-ever Sweet 16 appearance

Members of the Utah Utes celebrate their win over the Princeton Tigers in the second round of the NCAA Womens Basketball Tournament.
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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – The No. 2-seeded Utah (27-4) women’s basketball team held off a pesky 10th-seeded Princeton squad on Sunday, winning 63-56 to advance to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championships for the first time since 2005-06 and just the third time in the program’s history.

“I’m proud of our team,” said eighth-year head coach Lynne Roberts after the second-round win at Utah’s Hunstman Center. “We set out to do this a year ago. We lost in this game at University of Texas and the goal was to be able to host (this year) so that we could have that home-court advantage and it made a difference.”

Utah’s fourth-year junior Alissa Pili backed up her recent second-team All-American honor with another 20-plus-point performance, scoring 28 on 8-for 13 shooting with 10 rebounds and going 11-for 13 on free throws. Sophomore forward Jenna Johnson added 15 points and six rebounds.

There’s been a lot of talk this weekend about how the Utes’ previous few seasons have ended – beginning with a rough 14-17 season that was cut short in 2020 due to the pandemic, followed by an abysmal 5-16 record in 2020-21. But the tide turned last year, as Utah rebounded with a 21-12 season that ended with a 78-56 loss to Texas in Austin in the second round of the NCAA tournament one year ago.

So, what changed?

“Last year, everyone was new to the NCAA tournament, so I think everyone was just experiencing it for the first time,” mused Johnson. “Losing in the second round last year, we’re definitely a lot hungrier this year, and then obviously hosting in Salt Lake, it’s fun just being in your own environment, to be around your own fans. I think it gives us an elevated level of confidence, both knowing what it’s like to play in this tournament and also getting to be at home.”

“Yeah, freshman year was kind of rough,” added third-year sophomore Kennady McQueen, who chipped in nine points Sunday. “We did experience losing a lot. … Coach Roberts, she said we are not going to have another season like that. We all stood behind her — the people that stayed — and brought in great people like starting last year with Jenna and Gi (Gianna Kneepkens) and people like that who have had a huge impact in helping us to where we are today. …

“When you get together a group of people that have the same goal in mind and will do make anything to make it happen, I think that’s where we have seen our success rate going up. This past offseason, we just kept getting better, and of course, the addition of the Alissa Pili really helped. When you bring a group of girls that have the same dream and same goal at the end of the year and doesn’t care about personal stats more than winning, I think we get the season that we have today, and it prepares us for deep run in March.”

In particular, McQueen believe it was Utah’s improvement in their defense that was crucial to the turnaround. “Everyone knows how good we are on offense, but if we can’t get stops, it doesn’t matter how good you are on offense,” she said. “So that’s just been a key the whole past off-season and all of this season — just getting better on defense.”

MORE FROM ON HER TURF: Alissa Pili revives her love of basketball with record season at Utah

Roberts credits their defensive improvement with a “philosophical mindset change,” explaining, “We worked on [defense] a lot differently, a lot more intentionally. Strategically we made some changes of how we are going to defend, and I won’t bore you with that. But there was a lot, just different things because you have to play to your strengths. You can’t be a run-and-jump pressing team if you don’t have the depth and athletes to do it. You can’t be a zone team if you are not super big. You have to figure out what fits your personnel, and so that’s what we did.”

There’s also the undeniable impact of Pili, a transfer from USC who has found her stride as a Ute, where she recently was named the Pac-12 Player of the Year.

“She kind of is the straw that stirs the drink for us right now,” Roberts said regarding the 21-year-old Alaska native. “She’s a nightmare to defend because she can shoot the three, and she’s also really athletic and mobile, so it doesn’t matter who we are playing. I think you have to gameplan for her. But then with her three-point shooting, you know, you have to pick your poison.”

But Roberts also gave plenty of kudos to Johnson, whom she describes as “phenomenal.”

“She’s 19 going on 40,” Roberts said of Johnson. “She’s the most mature, even-keeled consistent player we have. What I love about her is she is who she is. She’s confident in who she is. She knows who she is. She also is incredibly busy off the court.

“We were talking as we were getting ready to watch film, just shooting the breeze a bunch of us, we were talking about movies. And she was like, Oh, I don’t watch movies. Why not? I don’t have time. I get bored. What do you mean you don’t have time? Do you watch shows? No, I don’t ever watch TV. It is because she is doing all of these other extracurricular activities.”

As for guiding the Utes to becoming a championship program, Roberts still sees it as an uphill battle – but one that she and her players are ready for.

“I always use the analogy of pushing the boulder up the hill,” she said. “And doing things for the first time, you have to have that mindset. You have to keep pushing. It’s been incredibly fun to see the support, and I think the swell is a perfect word for it. Most importantly, our players feel it.

“This is why you play, right? And it means so much. I know I say it over and over, but this is not going to be a flash-in-the-pan [season]. This isn’t going to be a ‘Oh, remember that year they had such an incredible year?’ We are going to keep doing it.”

RELATED: 2023 March Madness 2023 — Updated bracket, scores and schedule for NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship