February 16, (THEWILL) – Simidele Adeagbo, Nigeria’s elite monobob and skeleton athlete, has filed an official complaint with the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) alleging gender discrimination in the allocation of seats for men and women at the Beijing Olympics.
Lawyers for the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympian claimed in a letter to the IBSF that she was denied a single spot in the 2022 Olympic monobob event because of “an insidious and willful gender disparity in the number of sled spots made available for men and women.”
Jeffrey L. Kessler and Cardelle Spangler, the attorneys who drafted the complaint, wrote: “It is only because of this gender discrimination that Ms. Adeagbo was deprived of the opportunity to compete in the 2022 Winter Olympics.”
The monobob was added to the Olympic programme for the 2008 Beijing Games in order to increase the number of women who could compete in the bobsleigh disciplines. In the four-man bobsleigh event, males are given 28 sled spots and 30 in the two-man, while women are given 20 sled spots in the monobob and 20 in the two-person bobsleigh.
Fourteen of the twenty monobob athletes competed in the doubles event as well.
Speaking with Reuters about her position, Adeagbo said: “When I hear the narrative around monobob I think that ‘wow, that sounds great’ but when you peel back the layers it’s not actually what is happening – it didn’t in fact create the opportunities they maybe intended it to.
“There’s enough high-calibre athletes. Instead, women are being left at home.”
If the IBSF cannot provide “dispute resolution procedures” for her to exhaust first, Adeagbo will launch an arbitration proceeding before the Court of Arbitration for Sport on February 25.
“Equal treatment for female athletes requires the IBSF and IOC (International Olympic Committee) to allocate the same number of sled spots to women bobsledders as men participating in events in the same tier of competition,” the letter stated.
In Pyeongchang, Adeagbo finished 20th out of 20 in the skeleton, and last month, she won the monobob European Cup race in Winterberg, Germany, becoming the first African to win an international bobsleigh competition.
The letter comes as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) confronts criticism regarding geographic representation at the Winter Olympics.
THEWILL recalls that the IOC dismissed a request by Ghana’s Akwasi Frimpong’s coaches to reintroduce continental quotas in bobsleigh and skeleton for the Beijing Games, leaving sliding sports with no African representation.
On Tuesday, IOC Director of Olympic Solidarity James Macleod remarked that access to winter sports is a “different ball game” than access to summer sports when speaking to media on the thorny issue of African-athlete inclusion at the Cold Olympics.
Macleod said: “International federations set the qualification rules for access to the Games whether summer or winter. We need to work closely with them to find that balance, to find the best athletes and attract representation from a diverse number of NOCs.
“There is a review of those systems. There will be one after these Games of Beijing as well.”
Adeagbo claimed she remained undeterred despite missing out on the opportunity to participate in Beijing. Her motivation was in her words: “I want more women to be able to seize their moment and with the rules that we have in place currently that is limiting our opportunities to show up to the line.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
