Going with the Flo(w)

The Olympics are now moving squarely into track and field events and IG has slipped on her FloJo flip flops in solidarity. Now that might say a bit more about IG than she cares to reveal: such as she doesn’t discard items from her closet very readily, or she is a woman of a certain age, or perhaps she lives in a climate that doesn’t call for wearing flip flops for more than a handful of days a year. Regardless, it seems appropriate foot attire due to all of the fierce and fabulous accomplishments by women athletes and all the absurd things that have been said about them by sportscasters that tend to be men of a certain age who are clearly not comfortable with having X chromosomes dominating the Olympic scene.

FloJo was born in 1959 and burst onto the Olympic scene in a manner that was flamboyant, stylish, and set world records that still haven’t tumbled. She was plagued by rumors of steroid use, never proven despite repeated testing during the Olympics. Because she never competed again after setting world records in the 100 and 200 meters, it will never be conclusive. IG wonders why the stories from the Seoul Olympics regarding U.S.A. athletes doping to achieve medals isn’t being told as fingers are waved at the Russians. Perhaps the future would look different if history wasn’t so invisible. FloJo died at the young age of 38 from an epileptic seizure, although some still whisper the culprit was the invisible killer of anabolic steroid use during her Olympic run.

Regardless, IG remembers that in 1988, a woman’s athletic achievements at the Olympics (FloJo took home three gold medals and one silver) was not enough to rise to the top. It took style and theatrics back then, something we take for granted in someone like Usain Bolt, but in 1988 IG took notice that a woman finally had the guts to show up in a one-legged track suit, sporting six-inch glitzy fingernails (long before bling was a thing), and somehow made flip flops the footwear of champions. The shadow of doubt that followed FloJo was more intense than that of her male counterparts where five out of the seven men that competed for the 100 meters at the Seoul Olympics went on to test positive for drug use, yet they returned to the sport with little more than a nod and a smile. IG thinks that men that cheat are excused with a wink and shrug (just men being men) and welcomed back into the fold, yet when women achieve impressive success and become visible, they become a target accused of corruption and dishonesty. Just look at our U.S.A. election coverage for a prime example.

And this isn’t just a U.S.A. phenomenon, IG just heard a Canadian sportscaster actually say after Andre De Grasse won the bronze medal in the 100-meter dash, “Until now the only medals that Canada has won have been by women. Today Andre is the man.” If you don’t see what’s wrong with that statement, then IG asks you why the 13 medals won by Canadian women to the 1 medal won by a Canadian man are something less worthy, less meaningful? That’s why IG is wearing her FloJos. Take it as an invisible protest.

© 2016