FIS FACES BACKLASH OVER SHAMPOO FOR FEMALE SKI JUMPER

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A recent World Cup ski jumping event has sparked outrage over a stark gender pay gap.

Male qual­i­fi­er Jan Haerl received 3,000 Swiss francs ($3,290), while female qual­i­fi­er Seli­na Fre­itag was giv­en a gift bag con­tain­ing sham­poo, show­er gel, and tow­els.

For many, this dis­par­i­ty is more than just unfair—it feels like mock­ery. Female ath­letes train just as hard as their male coun­ter­parts, and rewards like this only under­score the sys­temic inequities they face.

The Inter­na­tion­al Ski Fed­er­a­tion (FIS) told CNN that women’s ski jump­ing, as a “rel­a­tive­ly new sport,” gen­er­ates less rev­enue and there­fore offers low­er prize mon­ey. How­ev­er, this expla­na­tion doesn’t hold up to scruti­ny. Women’s ski jump­ing has been an offi­cial Con­ti­nen­tal Cup event since 2004, and a World Cup event since 2011, mak­ing FIS’ jus­ti­fi­ca­tion seem like a weak and out­dat­ed excuse to deflect account­abil­i­ty.

Advo­ca­cy group Her Sport crit­i­cized the rea­son­ing fur­ther, argu­ing that rev­enue doesn’t grow in a vac­u­um. “It starts with invest­ment & com­mit­ment to bridg­ing the gap,” they post­ed.

The event con­clud­ed with Slovenia’s Nika Pre­vc win­ning 4,300 Swiss francs ($4,700), while Austria’s Daniel Tschofenig, the men’s win­ner, earned 13,000 Swiss francs ($14,240).

This con­tro­ver­sy high­lights the per­sis­tent inequal­i­ties in sports and an urgent need for gov­ern­ing bod­ies like FIS to do better—not only in pro­vid­ing fair com­pen­sa­tion but in respect­ing the efforts of all ath­letes equal­ly.

Report­ed by CNN. Link: [In this ski World Cup event, the men’s win­ner won more than $3,000. The women got tow­els and sham­poo. | CNN]