Gender equality uber alles
21st August 2008
Steve Sailer takes on modern sports.
One contributor to the unwieldy giganticism of the Olympics is the perceived need to hold a women’s event for every men’s event, no matter how unpopular the sport is with women, or, in many cases, with both sexes. For example, modern pentathalon (in which you pretend to be a courier during the Napoleonic Wars and swim, horseback ride, run, shoot, and fence your way to delivering your secret message — okay, in theory, it sounds pretty cool, but in practice, nobody cares) hasn’t been all that big since George S. Patton finished fifth in it back in 1912, but, nonetheless, the Olympics added women’s modern pentathalon in 2000.