It's the only reason I watch those races. Even my wife said - "#55 and #04 have the cutest asses on the planet". And she's right...

I think it does bring up an interesting question - why choose the high cut bathing suit as their preferred uniform option? It would at least be interesting to hear the thought process. Is it overwhelmingly the athletes' preferred option? How much choice are they give - i.e., are they "strongly recommended" to go with it, or do they naturally gravitate toward the suit?

And to whomever is trying to say that men are treated with the same scrutiny of their appearance across the board - LOL. I'd suggest saying that in front of a group of women sometime. Maybe you'll get bonus points if you tell them that they'd look much prettier when they smile.

They talked about this on Triathlon Preview show after super league. Emily Cox said the only exception was on religious grounds.

Nice "typo"....

The SuperLeague uniforms are uglier than sin. Next level fugly. The only female with legs on her suit is from Bahrain where the prevailing religion is Islam. I'd hazard a guess she was allowed better coverage only for religious reasons. More of them would run better if they didn't have massive wedgies all the time. Especially the Pole.

Its called a free market, companies for the most part make intelligent investment decisions on how they choose to sponsor and market their brand. If they believe that sponsoring Lebron James can bring them better exposure than sponsoring Candace Parker this is what they will do. You can also complain that men are paid more, which is true but they also bring in more revenue. Look at the NBA vs WNBA, why should female athletes get paid the same when their sports don't generate as much revenue or viewing numbers? The same thing happens in modeling, male models are paid drastically less than female models. Why? For the same reason that WNBA players get paid less than NBA players. You can call it sexism, but its really not. Its companies trying to find ways to maximize their profitability based off of what their consumer base wants.

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

Given some of the comments on this post I'm not sure I blew it after all. If the only reason a woman could opt out of the bathing suit option was for religious purposes then I think that supports my point this it is sexist to require women that prefers to race in short to have to race in a bathing suit where suit rides up their crotch.

Apples and oranges. I didn't make any point about pay disparity. What if the WNBA said the athletes needed to wear string bikinis or the couldn't be on a team. That's the comparison.

You mean like the lingerie football league does?

I'm not saying that super league forced women to wear small bathing suits to get viewer numbers up ( I haven't even watched it). But lets assume they had. Would it be better for them to have let the women wear what they wanted, then the viewer numbers didn't come in as expected and super league realized that holding a womens event isn't the financially responsible thing to do so they just cancel the womens event go forward? Or should the organizing company subsidize the womens race go forward if this is the case? I'm not saying that's what would have happened but I'm sure companies analyze every possible scenario before making any decision.

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2x Deca-Ironman World Cup (10 Ironmans in 10 days), 2x Quintuple Ironman World Cup (5 Ironmans in 5 days), Ultraman, Ultra Marathoner, and I once did an Ironman.

It's not necessarily sexism. They clearly wanted everyone wearing the same uniform. Given a choice, a lot of women wear a bathing suit to race in so this wasn't anything out of the ordinary. Had they made them race in bikinis then I would see your point.

Find me a picture where Jodie Simpson is wearing a bathing suit instead of short and I will agree with you. She was clearly forced to race in a kit different than what she normally would wear.

Stimpson, not Simpson.

I'm not saying she wasn't forced to wear a uniform she doesn't normally wear. I don't know if she was or not. All I'm saying is that this wasn't necessarily sexism. That's a big claim based on very little information.

It can be the both the free market AND other things. There are plenty of examples that show that profit motive doesn't equal good/right.

And choosing to sponsor an athlete sort of has nothing to do with it. How about, if they said, "We'll sponsor Candace Parker as a basketball player, but only if she wears a..."? Still in a company's interest, maybe, but doesn't sound as pleasant as exposure market blah blah.

Is Super League sexist? Not the best discussion question, and obviously too big for some people's comfort.


But given the fanfare about Super League offering an equal opportunity and equal money for women, it seems notable that a decision they made (and enforced) would be -- and is -- viewed by many as detrimental to women's sport.

That's really the issue, though, isn't it? (And, there were some comments about trying to get used to wearing the suit... sure sounded like they wouldn't have chosen to wear it.). Doesn't really hinge on whether people would opt for the bathing suit or that you or I or someone else thinks the bathing suit is fine or likes looking at their asses etc. etc.

And yeah, if they had enforced suits like Stimpson and others wear, it probably wouldn't be discussed, just like no one is really talking about how Mola might have felt wearing a suit with sleeves when he usually races sleeveless. I imagine that if the women were made to race in leggings and long sleeves there would a discussion of that, too.

Ya, I guess girls should have the option to want to be more conservative. Not I guess, they should. I simply never saw it that way. I liked the kits and love the series. Ill concede though if ( and this is untrue for the series) the girls were not allowed to wear shorts, that would be wrong. Even though it seems silly to me.

I am pretty sure that the "getting used to the suits" that was being referred to was the sleeves, prior to Hamilton island the guys were saying the same thing.
Obviously every athlete was expected to be in the same suit (exceptions for religion). This makes every picture or clip we see easily distinguishable as being from Super league, that is a good marketing strategy.
Sexist? no, a larger % of women wear the bathing style suit in WTS and all wear bathing suits every day for swim training. The races are short, no chamois required so the bathing leg style would be the preferred option by most anyway. Uniformity, if one of the guys wanted to wear smugglers I bet he would be refused.

Superleague could squash all of this talk by just signing tim reed to a contract and having him race in the same suits as the ladies, since we know he is a fan of the banana hammock.

My wife commented on them all wearing the bathing style bottoms, wondering how that would be comfortable (yes the athlete from Bahrain wore the shorts, but she was eliminated so fast both days, you'd be forgiven for missing it)... Ultimately in an invite only league, where all of the athletes are under contract with the organizer, I'm positive the contract stipulates wearing the provided uniforms. Some guys may have preferred sleeveless just as the women may have too, or preferred legless... A tri suit, regardless of the shape leaves very little to the imagination, I suspect the motivation for the style of the ladies suits was less around ratings, and more around producing one standard suit for everyone to wear, and likely just looking at which style was more popular amongst those who were signed on to race...

The whole concept is built around consistency, hence all of the Super League gear the athletes were wearing all week (although Johnny Brownlee managed to attend some of the events in an adidas jacket rather than SL (although they looked very similar), and Blummenfelt wore that jacket that he likely stole from the Norwegian curling team in the rain on day 2).

If the decision was made in order to put buns on display, hopefully superleague smartens up... But I don't think their motivation was the same as something like beach volleyball, and more likely to try and please the greatest number of their athletes, based on their preferences (will be interesting to see if they allow legged tri suits to try and court Flora Duffy for next year...)

I could understand it if the women were forced to wear something they didn't usually.

But I just google image searched ITU women, I believe ITU allow both longer legged and high cut suits - up to the athlete) and the vast majority wear high cut suits.

Maybe Super League just wanted a certain look and ran with the most popular. I find it hard to call this sexist considering it's what many choose to wear anyway. Or am I missing something? I don't know ... the world's just too fucked up to understand any more.

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I really like the series too -- and hope it does well/is sustainable.

She obviously wasn't looking at Claire Michel (#13), but back to the point. . .

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Right.... and tri clothing doesn't leave much to the imagination... although you can see more skin with some vs. others. Some people just can't control their inner perv.

People will complain about anything and everything these days. I enjoy watching Super League personally and the unique challenges in regards to the formats, eliminations, etc. They appear to want a "uniform" kit on the competitors... the athletes can compete or not.

First off, this thread is totally useless without pictures ;)

Second, here we are, bunch of guys, assuming that the female triathletes wearing swim suit style tri suit are being objectified, but do you really know how they feel? How about ask them and see what they say?

From a sample of one here, my daughter races USTA youth elite, and during all the races last, she had the choice of wearing either, she preferred the swim suit style up to sprint distance.

That has always been my thoughts with 2 daughters and 2 granddaughters. Anyone, female or male, who makes these comments just needs to get their brain, eyes, etc out of the gutter!!!! As we know, in some parts of the world, anything more than eyes showing on a female causes the guys to go nuts. Keep it in the pants. Keep the hands off, and KEEP the eyes off. Why do so many always try to make things dirty, about sex, about such negative things? I am watching the race, not being a perv

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

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I think you are missing my point. How would you have felt if your daughter's preferred choice was shorts because she felt objectified wearing a swimsuit, but her only option was a swim suit? In ITU they have a choice. It appears that in SuperLeague they only gave a very narrow exception.I have no idea which women feel objectified wearing the swimsuit and which ones don't care. But they made an exception for the woman from the middle east due to religious purposes, which suggests to me that there is clearly some segment of women that don't want to wear a bathing suit for reasons other than comfort.

As far as hearing from more woman, I'm all for it.In fact, I think some of the comments on this thread might be from some woman.

To be honest, it gets SO so old hearing from some folks, who, IMO, just seem to enjoy spending their entire lifes playing the victim card.
Life is just way too short, smell the roses.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep