Include the players with no feet

He was sitting at lots of other places »

Aug 7th, 2024 | By Ophelia Benson
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

How is this even a question? How is there arguing over it?

https://twitter.com/sportsagentspod/status/1821093927254159458

Of course you can’t have across the board “inclusion” in sports, because the whole point of sports is to exclude the less skilled.

You can have inclusion at the start – everyone can compete – but you can’t go on having it forever, because contests are either lost or won.

You can have athletic activities that aren’t competitive, and those can be as inclusive as you like, but when the sport is all about competing, then that’s what it’s about. One side has the ball and the other side tries to get it away from them. One side has the puck and the other side tries to grab it. One swimmer is faster than all the others. This is the point of sports, which is one reason I never liked it as a child. If your idea of social justice is total inclusion at all times then sports are not to your taste either.

5 Responses to “Include the players with no feet”

#1
iknklast
August 7, 2024 at 11:50 am

only two of fairness, safety, and inclusion can ever be achieved

And when it’s inclusion that’s achieved, it’s only one. Women’s sports inclusive of men are neither fair nor safe.

If the Olympics are going to be so inclusive, can I play? I don’t run fast, I can’t pole vault, a five year old could beat me at boxing, I can’t figure skate, and I swim only enough to save myself, but how fair is it to keep me out if you’re going to be inclusive? Can’t we include those who aren’t good at anything?
#2
Rev David Brindley
August 7, 2024 at 3:11 pm

…and how only two of fairness, safety, and inclusion can ever be achieved.

He sounds like 95% of those who spend two weeks every Olympiad cheering their favourites and then turn right over to the TV Page when the perfect example of fairness, safety, and inclusion is played out in the same stadiums – The Paralympics.
#3
Lady Mondegreen
August 7, 2024 at 6:21 pm

He sounds like 95% of those who spend two weeks every Olympiad cheering their favourites…

Huh? It’s Ross Tucker. He’s a sports scientist with a PhD in Exercise Physiology. He’s spent years writing about this stuff, warning people that bullshit “inclusion” isn’t compatible with fairness and safety.

And even the Paralympics practice exclusion. As Ophelia says, not everybody can make a given team. They have separate men’s and women’s teams, too.

BTW Tucker is a good guy to follow on Twitter–

@scienceofsport
#4
Sackbut
August 7, 2024 at 6:39 pm

“… explains … how only two of safety, fairness, and inclusion can ever be achieved.”

To be clear, what he actually says is:

… the IOC … still talking about balancing inclusion with fairness and safety. The fact of the matter is that if you choose inclusion, you do so at the expense of safety and fairness, and if you choose safety and fairness, then you can’t have inclusion.

So, no, not really the implied “choose two of three”, but rather “choose one of two”, as iknklast noted.
#5
Rev David Brindley
August 8, 2024 at 2:13 am

At Lady M, I don’t know how I did it, but I’ll blame the lack of caffeine. I 100% misconstrued what was said and withdraw unreservedly.