However, Marguerite Russell, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers, London, who has been involved in representing Ms Rippington, said, “Ms Rippington does not seek to use this claim to change the 2012 Olympic sports programme. She wants the organisers of these Olympics, who are in the UK bound by equalities rules, to conduct an in-depth examination of the gender bias in the canoeing programme, and, she hopes, in the Olympic sports programme in general. The Canadian courts have already decided that a national organising committee of the Olympic Games is carrying out a governmental function when it stages the Olympics. Ms Rippington just wants LOCOG to get on with conducting the equality impact assessment, as it is obliged to do, so that London’s Olympic legacy includes a positive contribution to the ongoing efforts to achieve equality of opportunity in the Olympic movement and in sport generally.”
Ms Rippington’s claim comes on the eve of the 2012 Games and in the year before the International Olympic Committee decides on the Olympic sports programme for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero.
The claim highlights broader issues of gender bias within the Olympic sports programme. Although at the 2009 IOC Executive Board meeting women’s boxing and a women’s kayak event was included in the 2012 Olympic sports programme, concerns remain as highlighted by the comments of Tessa Jowell as Olympics Minister in 2009, when she said that it was “wrong” that men could compete in many more events than women, and that it was “high time” there was equal opportunity at the Olympics.
Further information and additional resources: Samantha Rippington.
Recent awards and medals:
- Gold: International Pas de Calais, 2012, C2 500m women
- Bronze: International Pas de Calais, 2012, C1 500m women
- National Champion 2011, C1 women’s 200m
Sam was also awarded a Canoe England Volunteer and Recognition Award in 2010 for her youth development work.
Pictures are of Ms. Rippington canoeing during C1 race and from an award ceremony in July 2012 by
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