FEMALE CANOEIST CLAIMS LOCOG IS IN BREACH OF EQUALITY ACT 2010
Samantha Rippington, an elite female canoeist from Reading, will today launch a High Court challenge to the London
Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG’s) refusal to carry out an equalities audit of the Olympic sports programme. Ms Rippington, who has on a number of occasions been selected to represent Great Britain at the canoeing World Championships, wants LOCOG to examine the gender bias in the Olympic sports programme, including the Olympic canoeing programme, which leaves out women’s canoeing events despite featuring a number of men’s canoe events.
Ms Rippington argues in her claim for judicial review that the Equality Act 2010 requires LOCOG to carry out an “equality impact assessment” of the Olympic sports programme, including canoeing. This, she argues, is necessary to demonstrate compliance with the public sector equality duty contained in section 149 of the Equality Act, according to which public authorities must, “in the exercise of [their] functions, have due regard to the need to… eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity… [and] foster good relations between [women and men]…” She claims that LOCOG’s refusal to carry out the assessment, in a letter to her lawyers in April 2012, is in breach of section 149 of the Equality Act.
Prior to starting her legal action, Ms Rippington said,
“All I am asking is that LOCOG answer two simple questions: is it discriminatory for there to be five men’s Olympic canoe 
events but none for women?; and should that situation continue? As a female canoeist who could potentially compete at the Olympics I know what my answers are, but why won’t the people who are responsible for staging these Olympics give us their answers too? I think that the international bodies who decide the Olympic sports programme also need to bring themselves to address these simple questions. Olympic canoeing, both sprint and slalom, is very technical. It takes years to learn the techniques correctly and both the athletes and coaches require a lot of dedication. Not being an Olympic sport means lower levels of funding, support and training opportunities than the men, which makes progression, both individually and in terms of the sport itself, very difficult.“
Ms Rippington spoke from the Women Canoe Cup, an international women’s canoeing event in Boulogne Sur Mer, France,
which is hosted as a focal point for elite and developing female canoeists who have no Olympic event in which to compete.
LOCOG claims that it does not have to comply with section 149 of the Equality Act because it is a ‘private entity not carrying out governmental functions’; because it does not control the content of the Olympic sports programme; and because the assessment would ‘serve no purpose,’ as it is not feasible at this stage to change the Olympic sports programme.
However, Marguerite Russell, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, London, who has been involved in representing Ms Rippington, said,
“Ms Rippington does not seek to use this claim to change the 2012 Olympic sports programme. She wants the organisers of 
these Olympics, who are in the UK bound by equalities rules, to conduct an in-depth examination of the gender bias in the canoeing programme, and, she hopes, in the Olympic sports programme in general. The Canadian courts have already decided that a national organising committee of the Olympic Games is carrying out a governmental function when it stages the Olympics. Ms Rippington just wants LOCOG to get on with conducting the equality impact assessment, as it is obliged to do, so that London’s Olympic legacy includes a positive contribution to the ongoing efforts to achieve equality of opportunity in the Olympic movement and in sport generally.”
Ms Rippington’s claim comes on the eve of the 2012 Games and in the year before the International Olympic Committee decides on the Olympic sports programme for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero.
The claim highlights broader issues of gender bias within the Olympic sports programme. Although at the 2009 IOC Executive Board meeting women’s boxing and a women’s kayak event was included in the 2012 Olympic sports programme, concerns remain as highlighted by the comments of Tessa Jowell as Olympics Minister in 2009, when she said that it was “wrong” that men could compete in many more events than women, and that it was “high time” there was equal opportunity at the Olympics.
Notes to editors:
Questions about this claim should be directed to Claire Thompson at claire@wavespr.com. Mobile: 07771 817015.
Garden Court Chambers switchboard is 020 7993 7600.
Useful media resources: http://www.wavespr.com/media-and-blogger-resources/samantha-rippington/
Comment received from the UK – Claire Thompson, freelance PR consultant, Waves PR (http://www.wavespr.com):
It takes a brave woman to take on the might of the establishment. It takes an even braver one when it’s the already litigious Olympics body with deep pockets, at a point in your career when you’re doing well in your own field.
But Samantha Rippington, who cares passionately about canoeing for women, is putting herself out on a limb and has issued a challenge to LOCOG on the eve of the Olympics 2012.
You’ll see male canoeists at London 2012, but you won’t see women.Kayakers, yes, albeit in fewer races than the men. But while the men get to canoe, the women’s elite canoeists are, instead, gathered in Marseilles at what looks like a consolation event. 20-40 women from around the World have gathered to compete at top level – but despite being the elite of an incredibly difficult, skilled sport, they weren’t allowed to compete in this Olympics. They are planning to race across 2012 metres as a way of consoling themselves.
Samantha has found the resources to issue a challenge that she didn’t have when decisions about Olympic sports were made in 2009. Given that she’s a successful coach, giving her all to the sport, and currently enjoying a lot of success with the sport, she’s putting a lot on the line: most women athletes keep quiet in order to preserve what opportunities they do get, rather than rocking the boat.
There’s more at stake than a few women being unable to compete at the Olympics in 2012. With nowhere to compete at the highest levels, coaches are advising young girls to take up kayaking rather than canoeing, and standards will start to fall, even further than already behind the men as sponsorship ceases to come and the girls have nowhere to take their sporting ambitions. The current legacy of 2012 is that canoeing in general could become a marginal sport in years to come, despite requiring skill, athleticism, poise and balance – it’s a really tough, but hugely rewarding, sport.
If LOCOG really cares about the Olympics, and wants to leave a permanent legacy from 2012 that really counts, it could do worse than agree to review gender bias so that future Olympics don’t face the scandalous inequality that Britain’s women athletes face – along with other women around the World. Canoeing is not the only sport to face the huge inequality of men being able to participate and women being excluded, or women competing in fewer events or shorter distances.
Claire Thompson, freelance PR consultant, Waves PR (http://www.wavespr.com)
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OFFICIAL STATEMENT – WomenCAN International:
Sam Rippington is a courageous, thoughtful, intelligent and generous human being in addition to being a talented and committed athlete. Her simple questions highlight the fact that the Olympics are nowhere near equal for women. We hope that the questions she has posed will be given serious consideration by the IOC, the International Canoe Federation and the entire sporting community and that she receives adequate answers as soon as practicable. And we hope this can stimulate discussions about and actions to rectify systematic inequalities and imbalances throughout the Olympic sports program – summer and winter sports.
Sam has shown extraordinary determination, dedication and perseverance not only for her own personal development as an elite canoeist, but she continues to give back to the sport, coaching boys and girls and taking on leadership roles. We wish her all the best and wholeheartedly support her efforts on behalf of women around the world.
I am impressed by Sam’s CV, and the experience from that (and her own pursuit and coaching of paddling sports) informs her arguments on the side of supporting an international event (the Olympics in entirety) which is — supposedly — dedicated to equitable representation of elite athletic performance in all the sports that are on the schedule.
When a country hosts the Olympics, their own values and ethics should be honored, and should actually influence the procedures used for qualifying participants and individual sports chosen for the event — even as they welcome the diverse values of those who have achieved the honor of participation in this very special event.
That is a difficult balance to maintain — but it is, at core, the very essence of the act of hosting the Olympic Games. It is the true test of holding and guiding the Games. Namely, that sport — an act of playful, yet honorable, competition between worthy opponents — is an essential way to unify all people in a celebration of the best that is humanly possible.
The Canadian support of the female athletes in the ski-jumping competitions is a fine example illustrating this principal for a melding of the finer ideals of the hosts with the Olympic Committee Internationale.
Surely equivalent participation of both genders in all sports is represented in so many of the core Olympic sports such as swimming, figure skating, gymnastics, cross-country skiing & the biathlon, track and field events, equestrian events. All of us have found both inspiration and entertainment in these demonstrations.
ALL the sports represented at the Olympics should represent the entire population of athletes of both genders and other gender-variations, actually, as well.
An investigation into this issue, through looking into the individual disciplines represented at the Games, by all hosts is absolutely necessary — using their perspectives to guide the best principals of permitting participation of the best athletes in the world — on a continuous basis.
This is the essence of Rippington’s request. Opposing, belittling or dismissing it is insupportable in the face of the greater meaning of the event which is The Olympic Games.
Sincerely, Janet Perry
Paddler, Swimming Coach, Lobbyist for children and women in athletic pursuit all-around