From Jan. 27 to Feb. 3, the world’s best under-20 alpine skiers competed in France for the 2024 FIS Junior World Ski Championships.
On the last two days of the competition, the men’s and women’s slalom and giant slalom runs occurred. The men raced slalom in Morizine on Friday and giant slalom in Saint-Jean-d’Aulps on Saturday while the women raced giant slalom in Saint-Jean-d’Aulps on Friday and slalom in Avoriaz on Saturday.
On both days, the men’s events were live-streamed.
On both days, the women’s weren’t.
The greatest alpine ski racer ever is a woman. Mikaela Shiffrin holds a record of 95 World Cup wins, higher than any other woman or man. Despite Shiffrin being the perfect example to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS), and the world, that women belong in alpine racing and deserve to be seen, the world’s future greatest female skiers were ignored.
The girls who raced in the 2024 FIS Junior World Ski Championships are the future greats of ski racing. They are the ones that will be seen on the World Cup podiums and at the Olympics. Shiffrin herself competed at the 2011 FIS Junior World Ski Championships. What if the world’s future greatest skier was at the 2024 Championships? What if she felt she didn’t belong in the sport after being ignored by FIS and the Local Organizing Committee? What if it was enough to make her quit?
The ignorance of FIS and the Local Organizing Committee (LOC) is appalling to female racers around the world. Scottish World Cup athlete Charlie Guesty posted a statement to FIS on Feb. 3. Guesty called out FIS on her Instagram page by pointing out that it sent a message to female alpine racers of all ages. Guesty reinforced that women have a place in sports and that they deserve to be in the spotlight. She said, “FIS and its committees have a responsibility to show all athletes that there is a future and a valued career for them in Sport.”
FIS responded in a comment under Guesty’s post, saying “We acknowledge that livestreaming only the men’s slalom and giant slalom is not in line with the FIS values of equal opportunities and gender balance. At FIS we should have pushed harder to provide the same exposure opportunities to women as men and will take your feedback as a reminder to be true to accelerating and promoting female participation here in the future.”
Though the response of FIS is apologetic, it is not enough. Even if the decision to broadcast is left to the LOC (as stated by Lindsey Vonn under Guesty’s post), FIS knew. They chose to ignore the situation until they were called out for it.
The LOC issued a statement saying that the lack of livestreaming was due to a lack of funding. Since the events were in different locations, the production crew could only be in one place at a time, and hiring another production crew cost too much money. However, if the committee is going to blame distance, they should’ve only covered the giant slalom events for both men and women since they occurred at the same place on different days. Then, their crew wouldn’t have had to travel. Instead, they chose to move the production team with only the men.
The handling of covering the 2024 FIS Junior World Cup Championships was disappointing for female ski racers everywhere. Hopefully, the FIS and LOC will have learned their lesson and will actually work towards equality.
