Norwegian girls’s handball workforce fined 1.3 rupees for refusing to put on bikini bottoms

The European Handball Federation fined the Norwegian girls’s seaside handball workforce on Monday, after the gamers wore shorts, fairly than the specified bikini bottoms, all over a weekend fit.

The International Handball Federation calls for girls to put on bikini bottoms which might be “appropriately sized and cut at an upward angle toward the top of the leg”. The aspects of the bikini backside will have to be not more than 4 inches. On the opposite hand, males can put on shorts 4 inches lengthy above their knees so long as they’re “not too baggy”.

International Handball Federation spokeswoman Jessica Rockstrow stated on Tuesday she didn’t know the cause of the foundations. “We’re looking into it internally,” she stated.

Rockstrow stated the group’s center of attention at the present time is at the Olympics, now not the uniform, and that the group has now not gained legitimate proceedings sooner than. She later stated Norway used to be the one nation to have officially complained. “Globally, we know that other countries like to play in the bikini, for example, especially in South America,” she stated.

Team Norway have been making plans for weeks to circumvent the foundations to show the maths double requirements. Players don shorts in Sunday’s bronze medal fit in opposition to Spain on the European Beach Handball Championships in Varna, Bulgaria.

“I don’t understand why we can’t play in the shorts,” stated Martin Weller, one of the most Norwegian gamers. “With so much body shame and things like that these days, you should be able to wear more when you play.”

Each Norwegian participant used to be fined 150 euros (about $177), with a complete high-quality of one,500 euros.

The high-quality might be paid by means of the group, Ker Geir Liu, president of the Norwegian Handball Federation. He stated Norway has time and again complained concerning the bikini bottoms’ requirement to the ITF since 2006. “Nothing happened,” he stated.

Mathematics have spoken out in opposition to double requirements of their uniforms a number of instances in contemporary many years. Women are required to put on extra revealing clothes in lots of sports, together with observe and box, seaside volleyball and tennis. In 2011, the Badminton World Federation decreed that girls will have to put on skirts or clothes to play on the elite degree with a view to assist revive the waning pastime in girls’s badminton.

In some instances, girls have been fined for dressed in a get dressed that used to be too lengthy. In different instances, the uniform used to be very brief.

During the English observe championships over the weekend, Paralympic sprinter and lengthy jumper Olivia Brin stated she used to be advised by means of an legitimate that the working diary she used to be dressed in used to be irrelevant.

“I was talking to my teammate, really happy, and this official came up to me and said, ‘Can I talk to you Olivia? “She used to be like, ‘I feel your briefs are so revealing and I feel you will have to believe purchasing a brand new pair of shorts,'” Brin stated Tuesday.

Brian stated she used to be shocked, “My first response was Are you kidding?” And she simply stated, “No, I’m not. And I think you should honestly consider buying a pair of shorts.”

She added that the change left Bryn and her colleague speechless. “It made me very angry,” she stated. “We shouldn’t be told what we can and can’t wear. Why would you make a comment like that?”

Liu, of the Norwegian Handball Federation, stated there used to be no explanation why for ladies to put on bikini bottoms at video games. “Women should have the right to have a uniform that they think is appropriate to perform their sport,” he stated.

In a 2006 letter to the International Handball Federation, the Norwegian Handball Federation stated requiring girls to put on bikini bottoms used to be insensitive to a couple nations’ cultural norms and might be embarrassing for many who do not wish to divulge an excessive amount of in their frame, in keeping with a replica observed by means of The New York Times. . The letter stated that handball, a sport that mixes components of football and basketball, goalkeepers will have to be allowed to put on exposed uniforms as a result of they use all portions in their frame to dam photographs.

Tomas Schoenich, a spokesman for UEFA, stated on Tuesday that the group used to be merely imposing the foundations set by means of the global handball federation. “Change can only happen at the level of the International Handball Federation,” he stated.

The Norwegian Handball Federation proposed converting the uniform necessities for feminine athletes all over a gathering of the European Handball Federation in April. Schoenich stated the International Handball Federation used to be anticipated to talk about the proposal in November.

Weller stated there are gamers in Norway who don’t wish to compete on the global degree because of uniform necessities. (In home tournaments, Norwegian gamers can put on shorts.)

“It’s really sad because maybe the best players won’t be involved,” she stated. She additionally stated that the gamers have been uninterested in checking tight garments. She stated the point of interest will have to be at the game.

Some uniforms, particularly in observe, box and swimming, can provide athletes an edge, stated Janice Forsyth, affiliate professor of sociology at Western University in Canada and previous director of the college’s Center for International Olympic Studies. But relating to seaside handball, dressed in shorts as an alternative of a bikini is not going to permit the athletes to leap upper or transfer quicker at the sand.

“I don’t see any weight to this argument,” she stated. “To say that wearing less clothing, as required of women, allows them to become better athletes is absurd.”

Jenny Gross c.2021 The New York Times Company