On February 8, American cross-country skier Jessie Diggins made history again for the United States with her bronze medal finish in the 1.5 kilometer freestyle sprint. Matthew Futterman of The New York Times reported on Diggins’ finish, quickly receiving criticism due to his comments on Diggins’ physique in relation to her success on the snow:

“In a sport that has so many women with massive shoulders and thighs, Diggins looks like a sprite in her racing suit, and it’s not clear exactly where she gets her power. But the power is there, as she flies up hills, and comes off climactic turns with a burst.”

As backlash unfolded around Futterman’s comments the New York Times supported the language used in a statement to fasterskier.com:

“We aim in our sports coverage to cover male and female athletes accurately, equally and fairly. We believe sometimes their physiques are relevant to their performance. In this case, our description of cross country skier Jessie Diggins’s noticeably different physical attributes in contrast to others in her sport were an important and relevant detail.”

Are the physical characteristics of an athlete a relevant detail? By making an effort to provide equal coverage of men’s and women’s sports provide an excuse to objectify women? 

The comments made by Futterman and the New York Times reveal that there is still a strong belief that body type is directly related to athletic performance. Clearly the New York Times views athletes as nothing more than a body by excusing their comments provided they were in the context of athletics. An even poorer excuse was made for their objectification of women through stating they were providing equal coverage between men’s and women’s athletics.

The statements of Futterman and the New York Times were made in complete disregard for the feelings of Diggins, her competitors, and to all athletes. Futterman’s remarks were even more tone deaf in that they were aimed at Diggins, who detailed her battle with bulimia in her 2020 memoir Brave Enough and uses her platform to spread awareness about eating disorders. The New York Times response displays the double standard between men’s and women’s athletics  surrounding physique, where a statistics from eatingdisorderhope.com reveals 20% of male and 25% of female collegiate athletes suffer from eating disorders. Athletes of all levels and gender can suffer from issues of body image and eating disorders just as everyone else. Associating athletic ability with body type is harmful no matter whether it’s men’s or women’s sports.

No, body type is not a relevant factor to athletic performance. Diggins’s success is proof of this, as she has earned gold, silver, and bronze medals at the last two winter olympic games. Objectifying female athletes isn’t excusable when made in order to provide fair coverage across genders as male athletes are nearly just as at risk of disordered eating as female athletes. Personally, I run track and cross country for Union and competitively cross country skied in high school. In all the years I have been running and skiing, I have never seen a uniformly shared body type among athletes. The success that my teammates and I have experienced has never been attributed to our physical traits, but to the years of training we’ve committed to. Like the legendary Oregon track coach Bill Boweran said: “If you have a body, you are an athlete.” You don’t need to look a certain way to win, thinner doesn’t equal faster, and bigger doesn’t equal stronger. All of the women competing in the Olympic sprint final were there due to their world class skiing ability, not because of their physique. Futterman and the New York Times cemented the fact that there is still much more work needed to be done in treating athletes of all gender and sport as humans and recognize success is not dependent on body type.