Food for Thought is my brand-new monthly series of op-eds. Every month, it will present a brief analysis of a variety of topics of relevance to the sport and popular landscapes. It is loosely modeled after a similar occasional series named "Random Thoughts (on the Passing Scene)" published by American economist Thomas Sowell within the syndicated column he was involved with for nearly a quarter of a century ending in 2016.
In 2024, rugby was featured in the Olympic program for the seventh time in history and for the third straight edition in its modified version - Rugby Sevens. The 7s' inclusion starting at Rio 2016 was a part of a noticeable trend of support for "mini-sports" disciplines on the side of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), having also introduced 3-on-3 basketball and, for Los Angeles 2028, T20 Cricket (a big asterisk here) and Flag (American) Football.
While the merits of its proponents' claims for it to be the future of the game, there indeed should be no denying that the pace and speed of Rugby 7s are in complete sync with the demands of the Gen Z segments. Besides on the Olympic stage, the game's World Cup and World Series have both seen their fair share of glorious moments.
However, the Olympic Games in particular are no ordinary World Cup or league series. It was the first notable Mega-Sport Event ever created, established in Ancient Greece in antiquity and brought back to life under the influence of the messengers of the ideas of classical liberalism in both France and Britain - the two regions (along with Ireland) which ended up as the top markets for the sport of rugby (union, or also known as Rugby XVs) in the Northern Hemisphere. Thus, these influences also had their impact on the upbringing and development of the rugby game.
The principles of gracefulness of conduct, gentleman-like behavior, hard work and no surrender, and support of mutual prosperity - cornerstones of the Olympic movement too - are deeply embedded in the rugby culture represented by XV. It is often said that rugby is the only sport where a 300-pound South African prop can say to the French referee: "I'm deeply sorry, Sir."
Meanwhile, Sevens does nothing to demonstrate or even emphasize these crucial rugby values. Not due to its young age but because its architects, unlike their counterparts 201 years ago, no longer advocate them.
It is truly a missed opportunity on the part of the IOC to shed light on Rugby union and, consequently, on its own birth virtues.
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It has taken the world by storm. The new wunderkind of a topic for academia and the media. Everyone, including members of the opposing camp, is defending their views passionately and sometimes even slightly violently. But can anyone explain the situation in factual terms? Highly doubtful.
Considering that the topic is about two Olympic boxers insisting on being and competing as female, claimed by some to be transgender and by others as a foregone conclusion a born male, one cannot blame them. When the discussion of gender and LGBT are in the public eye, facts and the striving for them depart the minds of many, if not the multitudes.
Imane Khelif of Algeria and Lin Yu-ting of Taiwan are now both guaranteed to at least win a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games after getting disqualified in last year's World Championships. These championships were organized by a governing body (the International Boxing Association) heavily connected with Vladimir Putin, the tyrant atop a regime that has shown tremendous hostility towards all sorts of self-identifying groups, be it transgender (discussed here are not the legal merits of their self-views but only the validity of their desire for equality which such people have in the West but not in Russia) or, as is baselessly claimed to be the case with Khelif, with birth disorders. The alleged test itself has never seen daylight outside of the IBA offices. Furthermore, before Khalif was disqualified, she defeated the promising and previously undefeated Russian boxer Azalia Amineva, with the questionable ruling restoring her unbeaten record.
However, no side of the argument has tried to stick to the available information. On the one hand, there are those who accuse all doubters of sexism and transphobia. Against them is the group of people who, at first sight, determined that the boxers are born males and should be banned from competing in the women's division.
No mistake shall be made about the author's intentions - if it is indeed, in one credible way or another, proven that Khelif and Yu-ting were born with male reproductive organs, they shall not be allowed in a women's boxing competition. But until then, and while their birth certificates list them as women, what can actually be done? The IOC may or may not have separately tested the pair of boxers but we know no information on an outcome as of writing.
Moreover, in a theme often in itself frequent, surely raised levels of non-self-infused testosterone in biological females can cause a disparity, but taking account of such phenomena would require to completely move away from the men/women categorization. If any demagogue has or can come up with a better division, he or she is welcome to share it with sports authorities and persuade them to adopt it. Until then, it seems nothing is more practicable than the men/women division in the eyes of those who run sport organizations, and that division is clearly, by way of simplified comprehension of English, based on birth sex.
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Whilst I have previously written primarily about sports, NFL and baseball in particular, I have long had extensive views on external issues which have warranted expending time to put these opinions on paper but, as I am not an impracticable Man of Letters-style sophister of public interest, I elected to be more selective with the fields I chose to specialize.
Some of these topics are merely unimportant quirks I find illogical in people or institutions. On other occasions, they represent things that deeply frustrate and trouble me. The aspirations of my generation as regards their personal life used long ago to fall in the former category but has since with the speed of light changed directions. The biggest influence of course is the three years I spent in the Netherlands but a similar trend is noticeable amongst younger people everywhere in the Western sphere of influence.
Without having ready availability to data on the topic, it is in my experience I have concluded that people, usually young but ranging up to the age of 30, choose their intellectual cultural destinations (and, by virtue of that, both their temporary and permanent tangible destinations) based more on their desires for immediate happiness than on sound principles and the enrichment thereof. Young people have always been more so than other age groups. However, the presence of immediate gratification has never been felt more powerfully, especially by dissenters.
These people, for whom I insist on saying I hold no contempt whatsoever, are immersed in a dream-like cult for the likes of Spain and Italy purely because of their breath-taking sights and beaches, the endless heat and sun and the sinful nature of the wilder nightlife (not intended as an insult but simply as a method to get across the way these people perceive the situation themselves). Meanwhile, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the two countries with the biggest contributions to the lifestyle-defining features of the modern Western-aligned society - equality before the law, protection of property, trial before a jury and the constitution as a framework of rules for a society both orderly and free, to name a few - are nowhere to be found in the cup of emotion-provoking destinations.
In fairness, these two countries do hold their own in terms of tourism when compared to the previous three. However, when it comes to rhetoric, people coming back from living in Britain or Holland spend more time complaining about the demanding nature of Western life (more demanding than their Second World countries, for those who come from such origins?) than they did attempting to integrate into British or Dutch culture. In Bulgaria, for instance, it is not uncommon to find young people back for Christmas break from studying in cities ranging from Canterbury to The Hague to state how glad they are to see socialist-style panel blocks again, claiming to have missed them. Meanwhile, no word of praise for Victorian or Dutch Brick Renaissance architecture, much less about the cultural prerequisites of the two different groups of people who built panel blocks, on the one hand, and spectacular brick buildings, on the other.
That tells you all you need to know. Young people in the Western sphere care not about the habits and climates that make societies successful (though they are very active in finding oppressors). But what else is new?
Teodor Tsenov is an aspiring sportswriter and a HBO Bachelor of Arts graduate in International Sports Management at The Hague University of Applied Sciences in The Hague, the Netherlands. Moreover, he has previously covered NFL, MLB, the New York Jets and the Miami Marlins for Franchise Sports (UK) and Overtime Heroics (USA). You can reach out to him on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram, and via email tedogoshov@gmail.com.
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