Industry News
British Alpine skier Charlie Guest has criticized the International Ski & Snowboard Federation (FIS) in an open letter for gender-biased reporting during the FIS Alpine Junior World Championships last week. While all the men’s events were televised, the women’s Slalom and Giant Slalom were not broadcast.
“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.
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!”
FIS responded to Charlie Guest’s post on Instagram with an apology and also released an official statement on its website on Monday, February 5, apologizing that they had not insisted on the same broadcast exposure for the women’s competitions and that the organization is taking the feedback it has received to heart.
“FIS acknowledges that livestreaming only the men’s slalom and giant slalom at the Alpine Junior World Ski Championships is not in line with the FIS values of equal opportunity and gender equality. […] We will focus on promoting all FIS competitions and FIS athletes equally in the future to avoid any kind of similar situation in the future.
As retired U.S. skier Lindsey Vonn pointed out in her numerous comments to Guest’s Instagram posts, it is actually the Local Organization Committee (LOC) that makes the broadcasting decision. Vonn vowed to take the issue up with FIS and find solutions going forward.
The French Federation has also acknowledged the lack of balance in the coverage and issued a statement explaining that the decision was largely based on logistical, financial, and timing constraints. The Junior World Championships were spread out over several sites in just one week, resulting in some simultaneous events. The production team was not able to be in two places at the same time, and hiring an additional team would have cost € 30,000 ($32,320).
“We sincerely regret the controversy raised by the live broadcasts and believe it is important to pay more attention in the future to gender equality, but also to equality between disciplines. The federal authorities will have to support future organizing committees in this respect, with the support of their national federations, as the FFS can do with FFS TV for example. We salute the performance delivered by all the athletes on the competition field, regardless of gender, discipline or country, and we will continue to work on our territory for the egalitarian promotion of ski racing driven by the momentum of the organization of these WJC2024.”
— The WJC2024 Organizing Committee
