Women or Ladies?
Apparently, that depends on the sport
It’s been 50 years since Peggy Fleming won gold at the 1968 Grenoble Olympics, dazzling judges with a flawlessly executed single Axel. On Wednesday, another Californian figure skating phenom, Mirai Nagasu, will launch her quest for Olympic gold with a triple Axel.
While figure skating’s technical rigour has evolved over time, its terminology, in one significant regard, has not.
Nagasu is competing in “ladies” figure skating, while many other female athletes here vie for medals in women’s ice hockey, women’s curling and women’s luge.
The nomenclature of “ladies” figure skating is more than a century old, included in the constitution of the sport’s governing body, the Switzerland-based International Skating Union, founded in 1892. And it has stood since, regarded as a designation worth honouring, in the view of many.
To others, “ladies” sounds increasingly archaic — especially given that male skaters compete in the “men’s” event. And there are rumblings that it’s time for figure skating to update its lexicon.
Count 1998 Olympic gold medallist Tara Lipinski among those ready for change.
“The term ‘ladies’ has been long-standing in figure skating, and while I generally respect tradition in the sport, I do think the terminology has become antiquated and uneven, considering we refer to male skaters as ‘men,’ ” wrote Lipinski in an email exchange. “I would support a change from ‘ladies’ to ‘women.’ ”
Canadian figure skating officials ushered in their own nomenclature change roughly a decade ago, opting to use the neutral designations of “men’s and women’s” in their national championships.