FILE PHOTO: Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics skeleton – Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics – Women’s Finals – Olympic Sliding Center – Pyeongchang, South Korea – February 17, 2018 – Simidele Adeagbo of Nigeria reacts. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann/File Photo
March 8, 2022
By Amy Tennery
(Reuters) – Nigerian bobsleigh and skeleton athlete Simidele Adeagbo on Tuesday filed a request for arbitration against the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and her sport’s international governing body, alleging gender discrimination in the Olympic qualification system.
Last month, lawyers for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympian filed a formal complaint against the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF), saying Adeagbo was a single spot behind the Olympic because of “an insidious and deliberate gender inequality in numbers.” Monobob event 2022 luge places for men and women have been made available.”
On Tuesday, Adeagbo submitted her application to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), stating that the qualification system proposed by the IOC and IBSF discriminates against female athletes.
“Women deserve equal opportunities to compete and we must hold the IBSF and IOC accountable for their commitment to gender equality at the Olympics,” Adeagbo said in a written statement.
“Some women in Olympic sports currently have systematically fewer opportunities to compete than their male counterparts.
“This formalized gender discrimination has prevented otherwise qualified female athletes, including myself, from representing our countries on the world stage.”
The IOC and IBSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Monobob was included in the Olympic program for the Beijing Games to increase the proportion of women in bobsleigh.
The men were allocated 28 places in the four-man bob and 30 places in the two-man bob and the women 20 places in the monobob and 20 in the two-man bob.
14 of the 20 monobob participants also competed in doubles.
Adeagbo finished 20th of 20 in skeleton in Pyeongchang. In January, she won the European Monobobsleigh Cup race in Winterberg, Germany, becoming the first African athlete to win an international bobsleigh race.
(Reporting by Amy Tennery; Editing by Toby Davis)
https://www.oann.com/bobsleigh-pyeongchang-olympian-adeagbo-files-arbitration-request-before-cas/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bobsleigh-pyeongchang-olympian-adeagbo-files-arbitration-request-before-cas Bob Pyeongchang Olympic champion Adeagbo submits request for arbitration to CAS