Sports Minister Kate Lundy called for more equitable arrangements after learning that the Australian Opals, captained by global star Lauren Jackson, a WNBA three-time Most Valuable Player, flew premium economy.
“My view is that team travel should be equitable for our male and female athletes,” Lundy told the Sydney Morning Herald.
Basketball Australia said each national team was allowed some discretion over how their funding was spent — including on travel arrangements — but noted the inequality needed to change.
“The simple fact is when a policy results in gender inequality, it’s very clearly not the right policy going forward,” acting chief executive Scott Derwin said.
“I am putting in place a review of our Olympic travel policy with the goal of ensuring there is equity between travel arrangements for the men’s and women’s teams attending future Olympics.”
Kristina Keneally, who takes over from Derwin next month, welcomed the review as she hit out at the long-standing policy under which men are reportedly allowed to fly business class for flights longer than three hours.
“In this day and age, there’s just no excuse for men’s and women’s sporting teams to be treated differently when they both compete at the same world class level,” she said.
Glad somebody caught that little discrepancy. It's bad enough flying coach when you're a big guy like me, but when you're over six foot, coach is a nightmare. I can certainly see why your average basketball team would like nicer seats...but sticking the women in coach is one hell of a technical foul, Oz.
Glad the refs made the right call here.
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