http://ozreport.com/21.55#3

Right now if you want to go to the 2017 Women's Worlds in Brasilia you don't
know if there will even be one. That requires at least eight women pilots from
four different countries. At the last Women's Worlds in Annecy, France, there
were twenty one women. But that is Europe, and the cost of getting to Annecy for
European women is pretty small. Nothing like making it to Brasilia.

CIVL is very worried that there won't be enough women who want to go and can
afford to go to Brasilia to make for an actual Women's Worlds. So right now
women could be registering for a competition that won't exist. Not exactly a
preferred situation.

If there was only one worlds in Brasilia in August and women were allowed to
enter under a 6+1 or 6+2 arrangement, then this uncertainty would go away. Women
would have a competition that was definitely happening and if eight women or
more from four countries signed up, then a new Women's World Champion would be
crowned.

Here are some responses I got to my article about the Women's Worlds linked to
above:

Jamie Shelden writes:

CIVL delegates from several countries, including the UK, Germany,
Russia, Japan and France were at the CIVL HG committee meeting in February and
actively involved in this discussion and decision. I mention these specific
countries because these are ones that have female competition pilots that could
potentially be chosen for their national (“open”) teams. The delegates from the
UK and Germany confirmed that their female pilots would not be chosen for the
open team. Francoise, from France, is one that I have heard could be chosen for
her national open team. However, the French delegate was at the hang gliding
committee meeting and participated in the discussion. He never mentioned that
Francoise could be chosen (I don’t know if that was just rumor that I heard or
if it is a real possibility) and he voted for the current plan. The Japanese
delegate was also actively involved in the committee discussion and also agreed
with the current plan. He never mentioned any possibility that any of the female
pilots in Japan could potentially be nominated for their national open team.

Sasha is one of the most active proponents of having completely separate women’s
worlds, with entirely different starts, tasks, etc. She argued vehemently for
this when CIVL had an open meeting of pilots in Krushevo last summer. So, I know
this is not a problem for her. I have also heard that she does not intend to
compete (either way) in Brasilia.

The bottom line is that I don’t believe this is an issue anyway. Something could
change, but my understanding is that there will not likely be 8 women in
Brasilia. I have heard that the Japanese will send 2, 1 will come from Germany,
1 from France, 1 from the UK and possible 1 or 2 from the US. So, if 7 women
register, they will all be given special treatment and will fly the “open” task
with everyone else. If 8 women register, potentially one woman will have to
choose. It would be interesting to hear from the French that is a possible
issue.

Alexandra, Sasha, <<multikss>>
writes:

Lately there was an open letter published which proposed changing
the local regulations of the Worlds in Brasilia in a way that women would fly
and score together with men. According to this suggestion the Women title would
have been given to the female scored the highest in the general list.

Since this letter seemed to open a discussion and get some public attention, I
would like to step in and express an alternative opinion on the subject.

My opinion is that having separate tasks for women is better than having the
same ones with men. It allows fair competition between women, which is necessary
condition for defining the new world female champion. Indeed we have to separate
two things -- General Worlds and Women Worlds from each other. In my opinion
women would rather need to focus on what they really want to do -- to compete
for their national team together with men in order to try wining the World
Champion Title or to compete for the Women World Champion Title. I think sitting
on two chairs and trying to do all at the same time hurts both ideas, especially
it deprives Women Hang Gliding from being taken seriously.

It could be seen in Forbes Worlds that flying the same task with men instantly
brings up the opportunity of being helped on the radio by the other male members
of the team, which I find un-sporty.

Most of the time in a mixed task women are not in the front rows, so they resort
to "follow-up and hang-on" strategy which drifts them off from their own
decision making. I strongly believe that we want to define not the best follower
but the best leader as a female world champion.

So if choosing from the current option of having separate tasks and the joined
task suggested, I would personally stay with what I see is fair, that is the
first one.

In addition to said above I'd like to mention a couple more things. My seeing is
that the idea of having both male and female Worlds at the same time actually
hurts already rather weak attention to female hang gliding. If CIVL has an
intention to bring more women in sport by attracting the public to follow the
women's competitions, then it would have more significant effect if the
competition took place at different from the general World's time. This way it
would be taken as a standing alone event. I understand that this option causes a
lot problems, such as a need to run the whole Brazilian event for longer time,
which is more expensive. For the national federations it would also make
additional hassle like for instance organizing the retrieve. But unfortunately
the situation in hang gliding is so, that women are presented as a
disproportional minority. Minorities in sports inevitably cause more expenses
for all sides. That is why it is so important to try to get more women into the
sport, rather than mixing them up with men during the Worlds.

It is not a secret that the flying style in FAI-1 comps differs from rather
relaxed events of cat. 2. A big part of potential female participants will be
discouraged from participating in the FAI-1 competition when they have to stage
and fly together with a hundred rather aggressive men.

I understand that nowadays it is very unlikely to make separate women worlds,
when we basically see more and more of our female pilots dropping off comps, but
essentially these are the points to consider in the future if we want more
attention for this part of the sport.

I wrote back to her:

I find it very interesting that we agree. I think that everyone agrees that it
would be much better to have a separate women’s championship. The problem is
with Brasilia only and the fact that the two competitions present a conflict.

Given that there is going to be a world championship in Brasilia, then it should
be one championship to get rid of the conflict.

Corinna Schwiegershausen <<corinna>>
writes:

Davis stated: 1) Mostly men making decisions for women.

Davis is right here. Just for your understanding - not even the top 5 women,
including me, had been asked and given the pro and contra arguments before this
"vote" at the meeting in Salzburg had been made. Françoise had no idea about
this decision, neither did Yoko or Chisato when I asked them. The only ones of
the whole female world ranking that might have known about this vote and its
result were Kathleen, because her husband Gordon was in the meeting, and Jamie
of course.

Why were there not more female voices to be heard and seen at the meeting in
Salzburg? Well, I would have come immediately and at my own costs, had I been
invited to join this meeting that concerns our female hang gliding world! I have
actually made the effort to contact and talk to Françoise, Yoko, Chisato and
Sasha, I didn´t get an answer from Kathleen or Claudia, but I also talked to
Niki Longshore. I talked to the women who are most likely to join the Worlds in
Brasilia, which are the ones this topic concerns, and who should have had a
voice in this process I think.

To me, this vote seems to have been a faulty process, taking place over the head
of these hopefully 8 or 9 women who are concerned, and who could be affected in
a very negative way by this decision. It should be revised and a new vote taken
by the women concerned, the ones that will compete in Brasilia.

We want to motivate the rest of the flying girls by showing that if you are
focused and dedicated, if you keep flying and learning, you can fly the same
tasks like the guys, and you can win an overall task in an international comp
like Sasha just did in Australia, that you can in fact even rank 15th overall in
an open worlds, like I did in Big Spring. It is important that women show up in
the top 100 in the world ranking - but if you artificially cut out the ones who
are most likely to get there (Françoise, Sasha, Yoko, Chisato and me) by forcing
us to decide between either flying a women’s worlds without gaining sustainable
world ranking points, or flying in the open with our team (that we are qualified
and by our NAC nominated for), thus having the opportunity to score high points
in the highest scoring comp in the world, it might probably destroy the
possibility to get a valid new women´s world champion, which is also important
in our sport!

Jamie said: I seems to me that Corinna wants women to have special treatment at
competitions.

Françoise, Sasha and me are nominated by our NACs into the national team of 6,
but if you want to put it like that, yes in fact I am asking for a special
treatment for the other 5 or 6 women who are likely to compete in Brasilia and
eligible to fly a women's worlds, to be allowed to compete in the overall worlds
as well, so all of them can score good world ranking points, move up and be
"more visible" to the rest of the world - to get into the guys´ heads that women
can actually fly, sometimes even quite well. From a safety and endurance point
of view, the 8 or 9 women I know of who are likely to join are all able to
safely fly with the guys in Brasilia, as most of us have done that for years.

Further on, Jamie states: Encouraging women to compete is better accomplished by
working on the women that aren't already competing at the level Corinna is. We
don't need to encourage the Corinnas, Francoises and Kathleens of the hang
gliding scene, we need to encourage less experienced women to compete - those
very women who are NOT planning to come to Brasilia. Combining the events will
not encourage those women, it will only satisfy the few that are not in need of
encouragement.

But maybe even the Corinnas, Françoises and Kathleens need an encouragement to
see what all their investment into our sport is good for? And I'm not just
talking about around 6000€ that it costs everyone of us (from Europe) to go and
compete at the Worlds in Brasilia, or around 10000€ a year (maybe more for the
ones who don't fly on standby…) to keep our gear up to date and going to
international competitions, but also about our voluntary, idealistic investment.

Keep in mind that by the current decision on local regulations for Brasilia,
CIVL is not just "not encouraging" three of the women who dedicate most time,
means and idealism to get into their open national team, but in fact CIVL is
PUNISHING us three! Us three hardest, but the other 5 or 6 pretty hard as well.
I know you want to do this to help the sport, but in this particular case of
Brasilia, you could unfortunately reach the opposite.

I have not only been considering and talking to the top 10 women in the sport,
but as you might remember from Monte Cucco and Tegelberg, Jamie, I have always
been happy to pull other women along, share sponsorship, and in fact organize
several training camps. I have worked voluntarily at the "Ladies Challenge," an
international comp in Greifenburg, organized by DHV to support women to fly
safer and better in competitions. As I have done this volunteer work for about
15 years now, in fact I know quite a few of the "vast majority" of the world
ranking list that you like to talk about. Let's face it - at the moment, only 14
women in the world would be eligible to fly at a women's worlds without
exemption, that's why I would like a decision for Brasilia to be made by the
women who really are concerned - the ones who will go and compete! Just for this
competition.

Apparently CIVL is unmoved by these arguments.