The Norwegian women’s beach handball team dressed more conservatively than usual, and the European Handball Federation punished the team for it.
After members of Team Norway decided to wear shorts instead of bikini bottoms while competing this week, the federation fined them $1,770 — $177 per player — for “improper clothing.” This came as they took the bronze medal in the European Beach Handball Championships in Bulgaria.
The whole thing is ridiculous. There is no good reason to fine these women because they wanted to wear more clothing.
It would be one thing if the players dressed inappropriately for the environment in which the event took place and wore less clothing than allowed. However, they wore what they were comfortable wearing by putting on more clothing. They didn’t want to show as much skin as the federation wanted to force them to show.
Norway condemns €1,500 fine for women’s beach handball team after punishment for wearing shorts is confirmed https://t.co/rFGbuJZTu2
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) July 20, 2021
The International Handball Federation states that female athletes have to wear “bikini bottoms with a side width a maximum of 10 centimeters (3.9 inches), with a ‘close fit’ and ‘cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg.’” That’s not a lot of clothing.
On the men’s side, the competitors wear T-shirts and shorts. That’s good because they’re wearing comfortable clothing while competing. Why shouldn’t the women have a similar opportunity?
One major problem that arises from forcing people to wear barely-there uniforms is that it deters people from wanting to compete. Norway’s coach Eskil Berg Andreassen acknowledged this in a recent interview with CNN. He used majority-Muslim countries as an example. There are women on the regular national handball teams in those countries who have talent but dress conservatively and wear hijabs. There is no way that those women are going to wear bikini bottoms to compete in beach handball. There are also likely devout members of other religious faiths, including Christians and Jews, and even nonreligious people who may feel the same way.
Sports leagues should want to have the best competition possible. It’s the approach that the National Federation of State High School Associations took a few years ago when it approved an alternative two-piece uniform for high school wrestling that includes shorts. The point was to attract more wrestlers because the federation felt like the traditional singlet deterred people from wanting to take up the sport.
Arbitrarily cutting people out of sports leagues because they don’t want to be objectified does the opposite. It drives people away from a sport and hinders the potential for future growth. If beach handball wants to grow, letting female competitors decide for themselves if they want to wear shorts or bikini bottoms is one way to do it.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
