So, I'm still trying to catch up with all of the Olympic Judo. There are seven weight classes, and I've resolved to watch it all. Today, watching the "half-heavyweight" division, as two players bowed onto the mat, I said to myself, "why is that woman fighting with that man?".
It was an unsettling tableau, and for a brief second I wondered if I were dreaming. But, no, the Brazilian player, Edinanci Silva, is a woman. I quickly learned this to be a fact with a Wikipedia search, where it states that
"Edinanci Fernandes da Silva (born August 23, 1976 in Sousa, Paraíba) is a judoka from Brazil, who won the gold medal in the half heavyweight division (78 kg) at the Pan American Games.... Edinanci was born with both male and female sex organs. In the mid-1990s she had surgery, in order to live and compete as a woman."
Be that as it may, I was uncomfortable watching her fight in this division. Although she lost in an early round, she played on due to the repechage tournament format. (Repechage is where a competitor who has lost can continue to compete in later rounds if the person he or she lost to continues to win. Leave it to the French to come up with a word for "losers bracket" .)
For what it's worth, I was rooting against Silva. I thought she looked and was built like a man. I don't understand her body chemistry, but her musculature makes me think she naturally has a surplus of testosterone, which would give her a strength advantage. She certainly exhibited a strength advantage in every match.
So, I was gratified to see her lose in the Bronze medal match to the Korean player, Gyeongmi Jeong. Anyone interested in seeing this match follow the link below, and forward the video to the 45 minute mark:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/player.html?assetid=1195476&channelcode=sportju
I wonder what others think about this. To me, it looked unfair to the other competitors.
P.S. Promise, this isn't going to be a Judo blog. Just until I finish watching all of this video it is.
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On the subject of androgyny - in the 80's I attended a women's music festival in New England with some friends. It was in a remote park in a large forest in the middle of nowhere. Only women were allowed to attend and clothing was optional, which might sound great, but there are some people that really shouldn't go around without their clothes on.
Now I consider myself a liberal who is about as far left as one can get - but the large naked women with goatees that I witnessed at that festival were just a tad bit much even for me. If some of those women had actually been wearing clothes I would have thought that some men had snuck in.
The only way to watch Olympic Judo is to look at the videos on nbcolympics.com. Here's a link to the Judo main page:
http://www.nbcolympics.com/judo/index.html
Click on "Results and Schedules" to watch videos of individual sports.
Watching that woman fight kept reminding me of the Miss Swan character on the early years of MadTV, who had a recurring punchline of "He Look Like A Man". It is completely legal and above board for that woman to compete. I just thought her body gave her some advantages over the other competitors. I was glad she didn't medal.
There was some beautiful Judo on display at this year's Olympics, and my hat is off to NBC for making it all available to me via these videos.
Nevertheless, I didn't know (until I watched it, over a week later) that an American woman, Ronda Rousey, won a bronze medal in the middleweight (70kg) competition. The first medal ever won by an American woman in Olympic Judo, and it got virtually no media coverage whatsoever, even on NBC. That makes me sad. Since I hadn't heard, I kept expecting her to lose. When she kept winning, it was so, so, so much fun to see!