NYTimes gift article, no paywall
Summary:
When the sport of artistic swimming, formerly synchronized swimming, announced it would allow men to compete in the Paris Games, Bill May saw his chance. But the U.S. team chose only women.
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I imagine that it had to do with the existing team having trained together for years. My brother used to train at the same pool as the national team; they’re really tight-knit.
The guy was part of the existing team. The team has 12 members who constantly train together, 11 women, and this guy. They all qualified, but the Olympics accepts 8-member teams, so 4 people had to wait it out. May was one of these four on the decision of the coach.
To be honest, there are two equally true readings of the story, one saying that despite the fresh opportunity for inclusion, the female coach decided to exclude the only male member from the selection, or you could say that the 45 year old guy, despite most likely being one of the top artistic swimmers of the world who arguably has done a lot for the sport both as a sportsman and as a coach himself, may not have been in the top 8 of the team where the lowest age is 17.
If all the genders were swapped, there would be one group saying that the male coach excluded the only woman on the team, and another one pointing out that how good you are should matter more than what’s in your pants.
I’m 45. Been training for years in boxing. All the time a fresh 20-something shows up and just on stamina alone surpasses me within months. I just can’t train as much or as hard as they do, plus I’m not as quick and I get injuries more often.
But he shouldn’t be included in the team just because of his gender.
Wait. So they don’t have separate gender events for artistic swimming?
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