At the Nordic World Ski Championships, Cindy Haasch, Maria Gerboth and Jenny Nowak are among the German hopefuls. In their sport.de column, the three combined athletes write about the desire for more equality.
The Nordic World Ski Championships in Planica begin. The team is looking forward to it and yet the way the competition is organized in Slovenia reminds us that we are still far away from equality in sport, and probably even further away in Nordic combined.
While the men have four competitions, namely team, mixed team and individual competitions with the normal hill and the large hill, we women only have two competitions. One looks in vain for women in a team competition and an individual competition on the large hill.
Of course, if you start the discussion as a woman, you will be put in your place by arguments from international officials. A team competition doesn’t make sense because many nations don’t have four combined athletes at World Cup level and competitions become a farce.
The economy often pretends that a product is launched first and then the need for this product is stimulated. That would also be an approach for sport. If competition formats are established, this may stimulate nations to invest more in women’s Nordic combined. The team competition is something elementary in all winter sports; Celebrating sporting successes in the community always combines with special emotional moments for athletes and spectators – we are denied this!
Where, in our opinion, not even a counter-argument can be made is the discussion about a lack of competition on the large hill. In principle, all World Cup combined athletes can jump from the large hill and are in no way inferior to the alpine ski jumpers – nevertheless, we don’t have this format on the competition schedule of these World Championships either.
This inequality really makes you angry all the time and we will never tire of defending our position on it!
Of course, we’re happy with what’s left for us, and it’s with this in mind that we’re approaching the World Cup. In our opinion, the women’s Nordic combined has developed well and has met with a rapidly increasing response from the spectators at the sports facilities and on the television sets.
The World Cups have increased and are organized professionally. The power development is there and the international power density has increased. Only the TV stations are lagging behind with adequate and consistent reporting on this. We hope, especially in connection with the Nordic World Ski Championships that are now taking place, that at least at this event the women’s combination will be the focus of reporting, especially the individual competition.
If the mixed competition then offers itself as a platform for our men to make our cause theirs and to publicly stand up for equality, then that would be a good thing alongside the actual sports competition!
Best regards
Cindy, Maria and Jenny