Having recently criticised the Saudi authorities for refusing to send women to the Olympic Games, as part of their refusal to countenance equal rights, I am obliged to report that a young Saudi woman competed in the Youth Olympic Games which concluded last Thursday in Singapore.
Dalma Malhas was a bronze medallist in the equestrian events, where her riding cap, natty jacket and jodphurs conveniently satisfied the apparel requirements of the boys back home, who insist on full-body cover, preferably black.
And indeed some of the women’s teams from Islamic countries, in football and field hockey wore something resembling pyjamas, which can’t have been too comfortable in the notoriously hot and humid conditions which prevail in Singapore throughout the year.
Malhas speaks English with an accent that could cut diamonds, one that not even the British Royal Family would affect on a bad day at the Palace. She is obviously from a wealthy family, and looks every inch of what we call in the UK a ‘Hooray Henrietta’. So when she said after her medal award, “I hope this will inspire every young Saudi woman, and young Muslim woman to practise sport,” you couldn’t actually envisage a rush to the barricades.
On the subject of equestrianism, even Princess Anne, former Olympian, member of the IOC and president of the British Equestrian Association has conceded that her sport probably shouldn’t even be in the Olympics. That rare display of democratic principle does not disguise the fact that, although and IOC member for the UK, the Princess Royal is not available for interview. Ever! Which says just as much about the IOC as it does about the Royal Family.
A senior IOC memeber in Singapore let slip that the Saudi authorities had not wanted Dalmas to compete, from which I can only conclude that the IOC pressured them to concede. It is, at least a step in the right direction.
Some sports and some countries took the YOG seriously, others did not. FIFA, the world football body ensured the entry was derisory in global terms, none of the major footballing countries entered a team, Chilean and Turkish women, and Colombian men lining up to face the likes of Iran, Equatorial Guinea and Papua New Guinea, for god’s sake. And the USA only had a handful of decent performers in the two major sports I covered, the swimming and the athletics.
In the former that meant the Chinese dominated the pool, as they did, more or less the whole YOG, winning double the number of medals of any other country. The IOC declined to publish a medals table, emphasising that the accent was on the taking part. The media, of course, obliged with the medal count.
I was hugely impressed by the swimming, both organisation and competition. FINA, the world governing body puts on a wonderfully well-organised programme which goes a long way to making up for the fact that a swim-fest resembles nothing so much as a huge vat of boiling eggs.
But they had the star of the whole YOG for me in Tang Yi of China, a 17 year old whose excellence in the pool was matched only by her sunny demeanour. Tang won six golds, and would have won seven had a colleague not messed up a relay changeover. Yet the moment she heard the announcement of her team’s DQ, she went straight over to congratulate the Aussie team, who had been awarded the gold.
Yet there were those in China who criticised sending Tang to Singapore. Yu Yilei, the sports editor of the English language China Daily felt that Tang would have been better served by the Chinese swimming federation if they had sent her to the far more competitive (senior) Pan-Pac Champs in Irvine, California rather than ensuring a gold rush against fellow youngsters in Singapore. Whatever the merits of the argument, it’s good to see public criticism of officials in what is essentially a government newspaper.
The IOC tried to emphasise the taking part rather than the competition for competitors as young as fourteen. On that score, the programme catered for mixed teams, ie in swimming, there were relays with two men and two women, in archery, there were pairs from different nations, and in athletics, there were continental teams, with 100 metres men’s winner Odane Skeen of Jamaica handing off the baton in the relay to Najee Glass of the USA. They were competing for the Americas.
There were also separate B, C, D, and even E finals for those who didn’t make it to the A final, ie the medal race. It was a way of ensuring that the youngsters got at least two opportunities to compete, rather than mooch around for a week, having been eliminated in the heats of Day One.
But with the accent of development, what was most impressive, at least on the athletics programme was seeing competitors from nations who have rarely, if ever been represented at senior level at the Olympic Games. Including, of course, the young Saudi woman. Keep ‘em coming.
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