When I check into the blog in the morning–usually about 6 am–to share today’s post to our Facebook page, I usually glance at the stats. It’s fun and sometimes interesting to see what’s trending.
No surprise that this week, it’s all of our past Olympics related posts. This morning this one, Swimming the 1500m: Why No Olympic Event for the Women?, is top of the heap. Tracy wrote, in 2015, about Katie Ledecky’s 1500 m time and the shocking fact that at the Olympics women race the 800 m and not the 1500 m.
When I teach sports ethics and gender equality, I find students are shocked to discover the differences between men’s and women’s events that make absolutely no sense. Whether it’s women track cyclists and the kilo, or high school runners and the 10 km versus 8 km, or the number of sets in a tennis match, it’s striking to me how unequal men’s and women’s sports can be. Do we really think the women playing tennis now can’t handle 4 sets?
Luckily this one has changed. In 2021 the 1500 m freestyle made its debut as a women’s event. It’s been part of swimming world championship competition since 2001. Of course, Katie Ledecky won that event. See Katie Ledecky breezes to first women’s Olympic 1500m freestyle gold.
What hasn’t changed is that Katie Ledecky is still making headlines! See In the 1,500, There’s Katie Ledecky and Then There’s Everyone Else
So join the crowd reading Tracy’s 2015 post below but now that in this respect at least, things have changed.
Oh, and here’s my fave Katie Ledecky video. Not that we don’t know there’s a difference between us and the Olympic athletes but some things make it very clear. There’s me splashing and thrashing around in the pool and then there’s Katie Ledecky swimming with a glass of milk on her head.
