The 2021 Olympic Games in Japan are truly something remarkable and worth watching. This year’s games have sports fans and casual viewers alike, glued to the latest news and updates, as day after day new barriers are broken. Mainly the barriers that all the young, female athletes taking part this year have taken down to claim their space in the world of sports.
The Norwegian national Volleyball team has fought hard and fairly to get their spot on the 2021 Olympics and is here to make a statement. The team’s core members with the vocal support of their head coach insisted on not playing with tight bikini tops and bottoms, which are the mandated uniforms for all female volleyball teams taking part. The sexualized uniform was already of controversy in European competitions before the beginning of the Olympics. When the team got a $1700 fine for not following the Olympic dress code it provoked an international uproar on all social media platforms. Even though the sum of the fine is rather insignificant, the fact that the Norwegian team would get sanctioned at all for not wanting to wear revealing tights and bikinis is what is important here. On Twitter, it has led to a great number of comments in support of the women’s team, including American rock-star Pink offering to pay for the fine.
The inclusion of Skateboarding in the 2016 Olympics might have been the greatest change in the sport’s history. It truly has transformed its reputation for being a grungy, urban, teenager pass-time activity to an officially recognized Olympic competition. Without its inclusion, the world might never have heard of Momiji Nishiya, a thirteen-year-old Gold Medalist from Japan. Most people at the age of thirteen are struggling with growing pains, skin out-breaks, and Algebra 1. Momiji has proven to be an extraordinary skater and athlete at that insultingly young age. Coming in a close second at the women’s Skateboard Olympic competition came Brazilian Phenom Rayssa Leal, also age thirteen. Women do mature sooner than men. Although, the honor of being the youngest medalist in Olympic history is still held by Marjorie Gestring, for women’s diving in 1936. She was 13 years and 268 days old at the time.
The unheard-of story of a math genius winning a gold medal at the Olympics is just another amazing tale of this year’s fantastic edition of the Olympic games. Anna Kiesenhofer, from Austria, won first place at the women’s road race cycling competition last Monday. The young cyclist besides now being a gold medalist also holds a Master’s degree in Mathematics by the University of Cambridge (England) and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Spain). From the beginning, she was a different kind of competitor, as she preps her own meals, her own training program, and has no one with any actual experience in her family to guide her through the gruesome fight that is preparing for the Olympic games. Competing without the weight of expectations might have given her that extra edge that other more veteran cyclists of the competition lacked.
The Olympic games 2021 in Japan are far from over and the world is eager to see what will happen next. Which national team will go home with a medal, which up can coming youngster will break a world record, and most importantly, what female team or athlete will highlight women’s competitions to be as important and spectacular as the men’s competitions.