It ended with a groan as I clicked on the Daily Mail's website earlier to read the leading story's headline as it read Jessica Ennis-Hill and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Team GB's golden girls were in a "battle of the six packs".
Yep, totally diminishing the fact that they had dedicated their lives to training on their speed, endurance and sheer phenomenal athlete ability to become the strongest, toughest and fastest competitors at the world's most elite sporting event. Nope, it's just a "battle of the six packs" because that's all really what it boils down,"What do we like about this female athlete's body that we can compliment and let's ignore her talents"
We've all seen the media's coverage of the sexism that's circulated in media reports of female athletes this Olympic Games and it's nice to see that people are sick of it.
There was a six minute debate on Fox News between two male commentators on the importance of female athletes wearing make up during the Olympic competitions with one saying "I think when you see an athlete, why should I have to look at some chick's zits? Why not a little blush on her lips and cover those zits!". BBC presenter Helen Skelton was also criticised for wearing shorts and the 'amount of skin she was showing' , y'know ignoring the fact she is in Brazil and its frankly quite hilarious because she was presenting coverage of the swimming and no one was commenting on the swimmers' costumes being 'revealing'.
Not only is it irrelevant and unfair as we don't see the same treatment given to the men. I mean, have you really seen anyone comment on the swimmers' V shaped pelvics? Nope. Didn't think so. Imagine if you saw a leading headline of Michael Phelps and that was commented on in the headline? You'd ask who employed that person to reporting on sports events. But, it's insulting and derogatory.
These athletes sacrifice a lot to work hard and travel to Rio to compete and achieve greatness from their athletic ability which gets dwindled down to how they look. It ignores the countless hours, pain they've endured to work so hard to be recognised in their talent and craft. It dumbs down women athletes to being pretty objects to admire their bodies than recognise their talents and invites unwanted scrutiny. It's incredibly unfair - women work just as hard as the men for the same achievement, yet the commentary isn't the same. They don't receive the same type of recognition they rightfully deserve.
These Olympic Games are meant to be a celebration of sporting talent, not a beauty pageant so it'd be nice to see people check their comments before they speak and comment on something worth talking about.