Wait....the part in bold....what else is there to move onto in life? It's like Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...

Guess who are the biggest sports stars overall in Norway?

It is Marit Bjorgen and Therese Johaug (third is Northug).
If you give female elite athletes the same attention as male, perception change.

Also take a look at the winners of Jerring award in Sweden. That is a nice list of endurance women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...sportens_Jerringpris

Radiosportens Jerringpris is a prize established by Radiosporten, the sport section of Sveriges Radio, voted by its radio audience who choose the Swedish athlete or team that has made the best sport performance of the year.. The prize is named after Swedish radio personality Sven Jerring. It is also called "the prize of the people", since it is the radio audience who vote.
The first prize was awarded in 1979, and the winner was the alpine skier Ingemar Stenmark, and the person who has been awarded the most times is the biathlete Magdalena Forsberg, with four awards.
Contents [hide]

• 1 All winners
• 2 Wins per sport
• 3 See also
• 4 References
• 5 External links

All winners[edit]


Annika Sörenstam has received the prize twice, in 1995 and 2003


Magdalena Forsberg has received the most Jerringprizes with four, in 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001

• 1979 - Ingemar Stenmark, alpine skiing
• 1980 - Ingemar Stenmark, alpine skiing
• 1981 - Annichen Kringstad, orienteering
• 1982 - IFK Göteborg, football men
• 1983 - Mats Wilander, tennis
• 1984 - Gunde Svan, cross-country skiing
• 1985 - Gunde Svan, cross-country skiing
• 1986 - Tomas Johansson, wrestling
• 1987 - Marie-Helene Westin, cross-country skiing
• 1988 - Tomas Gustafson, speed skating
• 1989 - Jan Boklöv, ski jump
• 1990 - Sweden national handball team
• 1991 - Pernilla Wiberg, alpine skiing
• 1992 - Pernilla Wiberg, alpine skiing
• 1993 - Torgny Mogren, cross-country skiing
• 1994 - Sweden national football team
• 1995 - Annika Sörenstam, golf
• 1996 - Ludmila Engquist, athletics
• 1997 - Magdalena Forsberg, biathlon
• 1998 - Magdalena Forsberg, biathlon
• 1999 - Ludmila Engquist, athletics
• 2000 - Magdalena Forsberg, biathlon
• 2001 - Magdalena Forsberg, biathlon
• 2002 - Carolina Klüft, athletics
• 2003 - Annika Sörenstam, golf
• 2004 - Stefan Holm, athletics
• 2005 - Tony Rickardsson, speedway
• 2006 - Susanna Kallur, athletics
• 2007 - Zlatan Ibrahimović, football
• 2008 - Charlotte Kalla, cross-country skiing
• 2009 - Helena Jonsson, biathlon
• 2010 - Therese Alshammar, swimming
• 2011 - Rolf-Göran Bengtsson, horse show jumping
• 2012 - Lisa Nordén, triathlon
• 2013 - Henrik Stenson, golf
• 2014 - Sarah Sjöström, swimming[1]

"If you give female elite athletes the same attention as male, perception change. "

I think things started out differently, not that it changed over time. Scandinavia doesn't have the same level of involvement in pro sports compared to North America or Western Europe/UK. A single NHL, NBA or MLB contract is worth more than the entire years worth of prize money in xc skiing or biathlon for all athletes combined. Same with football in Europe and UK.

If you look at sports on the Olympic roster, I don't think you'll find any difference in the treatment of men and women, in terms of funding or attention. I think that applies to most countries. The difference is how much attention they get relative to other athletes in the country. In North America, they are competing for attention with the huge pro sports, nascar, F1, golf, tennis, etc. in Norway or Sweden, they have fewer pro sports to draw that attention away.

Back to WTC, I don't get the impression that WTC is out to marginalize women in the sport. I think they have chosen one version of equality that many people disagree with. If they truly believe proportional representation is the best system, they should likely make that explicitly stated and come up with a fair system that can change with the ratio when needed.

I would like to point out that Lisa Norden made this list in the same era that Ibrahmivich is one of the more dominating Swedes in FIFA caliber top flight football. He is captain of the Swedish Football team and and has scored over 70 goals in under 90 appearance for Paris St. Germain since Lisa won the award. Elsewhere in the same time frame Swede Erik Karlsson plays as Captain for the Ottawa Senators and has been one of the NHL's top scoring defencemen...Karlsson was the top point getter overall (from what I recall at the Soichi Olympics) but in the same year, Sweden gave the award to Sarah Sjorstrom. We would be hard press to vault someone like Clara Hughes.

By the way, here is the Canadian list for the Lou Marsh Trophy (I don't know who votes on it, but not the people). Decent mix of men and women going back to 1980, and yes we got Terry Fox AND Ben Johnson in the same decade which was dominated by men only....since 1990, lot more female winners:

1980Terry FoxMarathon of Hope1
1981Susan NattrassShooting1
1982Wayne Gretzky *Ice hockey1
1983Rick Hansen[6]Wheelchair racing1
1983Wayne Gretzky *Ice hockey2
1984Gaétan BoucherSpeed skating1
1985Wayne Gretzky *Ice
Johnson *Track and field1
1987Ben Johnson *Track and field2
1988Carolyn Waldo ^Synchronized swimming1
1989Wayne Gretzky *Ice hockey4
1990Kurt Browning *Figure skating1
1991Silken Laumann ^Rowing1
1992Mark Tewksbury *Swimming1
1993Mario Lemieux *Ice Hockey1
1994Myriam Bédard ^Biathlon1
1995Jacques Villeneuve *Auto racing1
1996Donovan Bailey *Track and field1
1997Jacques Villeneuve *Auto racing2
1998Larry Walker *Baseball1
1999Caroline BrunetKayaking1
2000Daniel IgaliWrestling1
2001Jamie Salé & David PelletierFigure skating1
2002Catriona Le May Doan ^Speed skating1
2003Mike Weir *Golf1
2004Adam van KoeverdenKayaking1
2005Steve Nash *Basketball1
2006Cindy Klassen ^Speed skating1
2007Sidney Crosby *Ice hockey1
2008Chantal Petitclerc ^[5]Wheelchair racing1
2009Sidney Crosby *[7]Ice hockey2
2010Joey Votto[8]Baseball1
2011Patrick Chan *[9]Figure skating1
2012Christine Sinclair ^[10]Soccer1
2013Jon Cornish[11]Canadian football1
2014Kaillie Humphries[12]Bobsleigh1

Your understanding of sports in Scandinavia is not accurate.
First of all, the terms Olympic sports and Olympians are not used. You have sports and athletes, some sports are in the Olympics but the Olympics are not the main focus or the driver for the sport. This is totally different here in the USA.

Second, Scandinavian countries are small but part of Europe. You have full access to international football (sorry soccer) on TV every day. And players from Scandinavia also play in other countries. This is not anything new, I remember English games on the TV in the 70s when I was really young. Team handball is also big in Scandinavia.

But the countries have a culture for individual sports and a culture for promoting women in those sports. That is the biggest difference.

You fully missed my point, and actually confirmed what I was saying. Nobody gave the attention to women or to sports outside of the big pro sports. People have choosen to watch sports that are the most successful and most common in their specific countries. Sure, anyone can watch sport on TV, but it is much different having teams in most major cities and coverage on all TV networks all the time. My city has at least 5 major professional teams, a big auto race and pan am games coming up.

If you look at skiing in canada vs Norway, the women get just as much attention and coverage as the men. Same in swimming, athletics, diving or basically any sport on the Olympic roster that isn't also a major pro sport. Triathlon was the same, Peter Reid was no bigger a name than Bowden, Fuhr, Bentley, etc. In those sports, the level of attention is related to how successful the athlete is. Beckie Scott is still the biggest name in Canadian skiing.

One key difference between pro sport and Olympic sport, is the single gender aspect of pro sport. In North America, all of the big pro sport leagues are men. This makes it appear like no one cares about women in sport. But if you look past the big pro sports, you will see men and women getting equal coverage based on their international level.

You have what you call pro sports in Scandinavia. And yes football/soccer together with team handball are the biggest sports.
What you do not get is how big endurance sports are, how popular they are, how big starts the athletes are.
In my old town you have 4 top team in soccer and handball. But you still have 40-50,000 fans showing up for a world cup race in xc-skiing, and yes the race is also live on TV.
Endurance sports can be popular even in competition with other sports.

Remember that the "pro" sport vs "Olympic" sports is a North American creation.
I really do not why you call some sports Olympic, unless you only value them since they are in the Olympics.

Halvard, how many World Cup skiers are making 30million a year? How many individual endurance sports have an economic impact in the multiple billions a year? How many have advertising budgets in the multi millions? No one would argue that North America likes endurance sport more than Europe and Scandinavia. But, you don't understand the difference in competition between pro sport and 'amateur' sport in other parts of the world.

WTC isn't biased against women, in my opinion at least. People have different views about equality, it is a very complex topic.

PS...you shouldn't get hung up on semantics. Pro sport is truly professional in the big league North American sports. They are signing multi million dollar contracts to provide a service to the team and the league. Other sports certainly have professionals as well, just like triathlon, but I use the term to distinguish between private independent leagues and competitions organized/mandated by international sport federations.

Does different sports pay differently, yes I am not debating that.
The issue we are debating is can female endurance athletes be popular and gain respect even though they are in the market competing against male from team sports.
It is here you have diffrences. Zlatan makes millions and he is one of the best in the world's most important sport football. But a female triathlete got Jerring award in Sweden. That should tell you something about how Sweden looks at female endurance athletes.

Also, the rest of the world organize sports differently than the USA, so the term pro vs olympic has not meaning when you discuss international sports. A good example is soccer.

My view is that WTC has treated the pro women worse than the men, for me that is not equal.

How do they explain this at Norseman ?

from http://www.nxtri.com/race_info/faq_norseman_2015
Q: How is the Elite selection done?
A: Elite selection: 15 men and 5 women

You don't understand sports in Scandinavia.

Easy, I do not like it.

I didn't read the whole thread but I have a new campaign - #35MENINKONA.

Doesnt that solve everyone's problems?

But I thought you " crazy Europeans " had a different view of women and racing? Maybe not.

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I *heart* weak, dumb ass people...

That's not what I'm debating. I'm saying that all Olympic sports are marginal in North America because of the pro sport leagues. In my opinion, the men and women are treated basically the same in terms of attention and exposure once you remove the men's pro sport leagues. Gwen gets way more attention in triathlon compared to the men in the USA, makes sense since she wins everything. I guess I don't see how WTC is biased against women. I'm sure we all agree that they need a limit on the field size at world champs, question is how that limit should be determined and does it have to be 50/50 male/female?

I won't bother debating semantics of international sport concepts. You are clearly very biased in your views. How you can claim soccer and skiing are operated in a similar way is surprising.