Difference between Sailing and Soccer

When the best sailors in the world learned that the water at the 2016 Olympics would be heavily polluted, a result of nearly 70% of the city’s sewage flowing into the race course area, they accepted the assurances that their health would not be jeopardized.

When the best women’s soccer players in the world learned that the fields for the 2015 Women’s World Cup would be artificial turf, a surface recognized as inferior, they retained an international team of lawyers and threatened legal action.

From the letter sent to World Cup organizers…

“Consigning women to a second-class surface is gender discrimination that violates European charters and numerous provisions of Canadian law, including human rights codes and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. By singling out women for differential and unequal treatment, you not only subject the world’s top players to heightened risk from an array of turf-related injuries, but you also force them to experience the legally cognizable indignity of playing the game’s most important event on what your organizations admit to be an inferior surface.”

Artificial turf instead of grass? Seems better than having to sail in the city dump.