Female Athletes

The inaugural Sao Paulo Indy 300 will mark several firsts, mainly of interest only to avid Indy-race fans, but one in particular grabbed my attention: this will be the first time that four women have started an IndyCar race.

Methinks IndyCar is entitled to a little self-praise:

"This is really fantastic for our sport," said Terry Angstadt, president of the series' commercial division. "Diversity is actually one of the attributes of the Izod IndyCar Series. Racing is the only sport where female athletes compete in absolutely the same field as the men, they race on exactly the same tracks, the same cars."

Now we must work so that this parity is true for all sports, for only then will female athletes no longer be undervalued.

You would be hard put to find a set of athletic skills more impressive than that wielded by acrobat and aerialist Lisa Whitmore, a formidable truth inescapably apprehended when viewing samples of her work:

Brittney Griner is an incredibly gifted athlete. A mountainous exemplar of corporeal strength, Griner represents the awesome, ever-swelling physicality of today's female athlete.

None of which makes her a saint, of course. But neither does a punch thrown in a moment of mental opacity in the heat of athletic competition count her as a shaitan. What she did was unquestionably wrong, and she should be punished in the way typical for her offense (and surely a punch has been thrown in an NCAA game before). And there it should rest.

Much has been said about this incident already, some of it trenchant, so I will add only two further observations. I hope never to find myself on the receiving end of a punch from Griner. And I hope Jordan Barncastle, who must have one heck of a chin, is okay.

Lenda Murray, eight-time Ms. Olympia, the greatest female bodybuilder ever, seems to have a talent for dance too, as seen here in video taken at the 2009 Lenda Murray Bodybuilding Championships. Perhaps a stint on DWTS (which, boo! doesn't have a female athlete this season) is next?

A remarkable performance by a sister-brother act, recorded live for The Good Old Days (circa 1981). Notice who is doing most of the heavy lifting:

Olympic speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez finds herself atop a strange list.

A reminder, just in case she (or we) needed one, that the Internet is like a shadowy lodestone attracting seemingly in greater measure the unreasonable and the unscrupulous. But disturbing as that is to ponder, it is better than another simile, one possibly more faithful: a finely polished mirror in which we find a clearer than we'd like to think reflection of our world and ourselves.

MMA pioneer Erin Toughill talks about sparring with guys, making weight, showing everyone that she is the best in the world before she retires, and the woman she'll have to defeat to do that—Cris "Cyborg" Santos:

I'm fascinated by female aerialists, and with good reason. Their strength is unsurpassed; their grace, undeniable. Erna Sommer, the star of today's post, is another aerial conjurer of that wondrous athleticism and mystical beauty which leaves mortals like yours truly spellbound. Enjoy!—

If you watched women's Olympic downhill skiing yesterday, you understand why Emily Brydon and her fellow competitors might think such a thing. We saw again the awesome difference strength can make in sports, seemingly almost any sport. The Vancouver Sun makes clear what sets Lindsey Vonn apart:

The fact is, Vonn, an analytical perfectionist whose size and strength — she’s [5-10 and 165 pounds] — allows her to race on more forgiving men’s skis, is just too powerful, too innately talented to be caught when she’s on her game, shin bruise or not.

Congratulations to Lindsey Vonn and to Julia Mancuso!

I was fortunate to catch martial arts champion (many times over) Mindy Kelly on National Geographic Channel's Fight Science the other night. Pretty cool stuff:

Yesterday, I predicted the Lindsey Vonn-SI cover controversy, despite a brief lull, wasn't over yet. And you're about to see why. Say what you will about Vonn, but she is making the most of her "Olympic moment"—as well she should. This is a clever woman who knows how to take advantage of opportunities; earlier this month, she opened, in timely fashion, her own online store.

What sparked the controversy was a cover. But what stirs the embers now is inside; namely, the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. I'm not naive enough to think for a moment that sexuality and aesthetics have ever been divorced from athletics, or that they should be. Thus I'm more often than not pleased when SI includes female athletes in its swimsuit edition (which is usually dominated by hackneyed images of weedy, yet nonetheless busty, "supermodels").

But neither am I naive enough to think that female athletes, when they do appear, are always presented fairly, that is, in a way consistent with their status as world-class athletes: photos airbrushed to hide muscles, submissive poses, and so forth are forever a problem. Diversity (are all great female athletes blond-haired and white?—sometimes one wonders) has been a problem too; but not one without welcome exceptions, e.g., Venus and Serena Williams.

So what to make of all this? It isn't so much that female athletes are being "sexualized" (for you can't make one what one already is), it is the way in which their sexuality is presented. Too often their athleticism and strength is downplayed, or hidden altogether. It's as though we as a society still can't, in 2010, appreciate that a woman can be attractive and powerful both at once.

A few thoughts to keep in mind, anyway. Now may the tumult resume:

An aphorism of James Thurber's (a takeoff on Wordsworth's "All good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity") fittingly introduces this post. Now that the brouhaha over the Lindsey Vonn Sports Illustrated cover has calmed somewhat (but only for a time, I predict), perhaps we are in a better place to enjoy a little satire, this cute video produced by "Mom2nat":

When last we saw bodybuilder Kathy Bertram she was snapping a baseball bat. In today's bit of fun we find her doing dishes, that is, in her own eccentric strongwoman way:

National Girls and Women in Sports Day makes its annual visit today. I marked the occasion last year with an op-ed piece penned by WNBA President Donna Orender.

But this year, thanks to the crew at Women Talk Sports, it is a slideshow of photos from the past year in women's sports, images exciting and affecting, loud and quiet—moments captured in the lives of girls and women laced with the joys and lessons that come with playing sports:

The question again on everyone's mind after the seemingly invincible 145-pound champion's TKO of a game but overmatched Marloes Coenen Saturday night will have to be answered by the woman Strikeforce enlisted to act as judge, jury, and, just maybe, executioner: Erin Toughill.

Toughill—a big, strong fighter with abundant punching power—will be an opponent unlike any other Cyborg has faced. It's the compelling matchup many have been expecting all along, including Strikeforce founder and CEO Scott Coker:

Coker likes the size Toughill (10-2 MMA, 0-0 SF) brings to the matchup. After all, it's a needed weapon when fighting Santos, who noticeably bulked up in the 24 hours between weigh-ins and fight night. Besides, the main reason Strikeforce signed Toughill, a former "American Gladiators" star and part-time pro boxer, was for the probable fight.

"That's why we brought her in – to fight Santos," he said.