HALF ART
CHRIS THURMAN: Artist boxes clever to open our eyes to blind spots
Last week, South African sprinter Akani Simbine won the 100m in the Doha leg of athletics’ prestigious Diamond League. He was up against some big-name contenders, but his victory wasn’t exactly a shock. Simbine had previously clocked a time of 9.92 seconds; he has beaten the 10-second mark six times in 2017. But you wouldn’t know any of this – or even, as a sports fan, think you need to find out – after browsing the headlines of BBC sport. "Justin Gatlin & Andre de Grasse beaten in Doha 100m" declared the BBC’s summary of the race; a curiously passive-voiced construction which, as eNCA sports reporter Junia Stainbank pointed out, completely effaced the primary protagonist of the story. This kind of thing is common in sexist sporting coverage of female athletes. At the Rio Olympics, US athlete Corey Cogdell-Unrein won bronze in trap shooting, only for the Chicago Tribune to define her as "the wife of" a Chicago Bears gridiron football player. The record-breaking gold medal wins of he...
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