Olympic Skier Calls Out FIS For Omitting Women's TV Coverage

Olympic Alpine Skier Charlie Guest had four top 20 finishes in World Cup events during the 2021-22 season, and placed 21st at the Beijing Olympics.

Now, she has a message for FIS regarding equity in competitive skiing, specifically that they need to provide equal media coverage for male and female athletes, posted to her Instagram following of almost 11,000 people. "Dear FIS, What we have just witnessed at the Junior Alpine World Championships is just 👏 not 👏 OK 👏."

"The coverage that was shown was excellent, but the opportunities afforded to one gender, need to be extended to all!"

"You can do much better, and decisions like the ones made this week actively damage our sport."

Her letter included the message:

- That female athletes are not valued

- That female athletes are not deserving of a space in the spotlight.

- That no matter your skill, determination and dedication, your career and results are irrelevant and unimportant. 

FIS and its committees have a responsibility to show all athletes that there is a future and a valued career for them in sport. 

You will come to rely on these athletes you have so clearly snubbed. 

"Athletes who were competing - We are all behind you, you are valued by the skiing community and we can't wait to see you ski!"

We reached out to Charlie for further comment, and she told us "there were two aims to the letter: to make sure that FIS implements some kind of policy to ensure that something like this CAN never happen again. Then, an apology issued to the athletes that were not given the recognition and platform that they very rightly deserved."

She also explained why this streaming is so crucial to athletes.

"The WJC is the U21 world championship. It is a huge step in the careers of these athletes, a number of whom are already top contenders on the word cup tour. For some though, it is the first time that they will have been at an event with live stream and commentary. It is an opportunity to showcase what you can do to your sponsors and community, and these are opportunities that were removed."

"Lastly, but most importantly, is that FIS/local organizing committee needs to understand the message that they sent to women of all ages, which was that female sport is not a priority."

"A conscious decision was made somewhere along the way to not show the women racing - a decision that does not seem to be fully acknowledged by FIS and particularly the French federation in their replying statements, which highlights how deep the bias runs."

"But positively, the reaction and support that the skiing and sporting community has shown has been brilliant, and I hope that each and every person that has commented and liked will carry on holding gender bias and inequality to account wherever it is experienced."

FIS did respond to Charlie on her Instagram post, writing, "Dear Charlie, 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 for men and will take your feedback as a reminder for being true to accelerating and promoting female participation here in the future."

It is demoralizing to see an organization as large and influential as The International Ski and Snowboard Federation ignore women's skiing completely. Did they assume people don't want to watch women compete? Do they just not care?

Even more disturbingly is the unanswerable question of "what is it with sports failing to treat athletes equally?" One of skiing's greatest heroes right now is Mikaela Shiffrin. And there's a King and Queen of Corbet's for a reason.

Even just two days ago, I was traversing off Summit Chair at Alpine Meadows, and the first person I saw hit the jump on the route was a girl, no older than 20, and she did a double backflip. I couldn't see if she landed it, because it was steep below the jump and I needed to keep a high line.

But that's just one of many examples, not that we should even need it, that women rip.

Sadly, ski culture isn't the only genre of sports that, historically, has prioritized opportunities for men. In 2021, NPR reported that the NCAA spends more on male athletes than female ones on average, especially when it comes to the few championship events seen as the organization's big money makers.

It's 2024. We, as a community, need to never let something like this happen again. Everyone benefits from equality, and no one benefits from sexism.

Ski culture deserves better.

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