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waving of any male politician.
The Iranian Islamists were against the sale of caviar because sturgeon had no
scales. The need for money led them to discover a scale on that fish. It is the same
with sport. Do you think that the Iranians will pass over a female athlete the day
they discover that she is capable of winning an Olympic medal? I don't.
A further good approach is to use Olympic Solidarity to promote women's
sport in those countries which will not be bringing it to Atlanta. Let us remember
that the athlete Maria Mutola of Mozambique, world 800 m champion, is a pure
product of Olympic Solidarity, which sent her to Eugene in Oregon to continue
her studies and round off her training. An idea to follow up and to repeat. At the
very least, it is a good means of using Olympic revenue to develop the future of
Olympism.
But when all is said and done, my friends, is all that really a priority, when we
know that, according to the World Bank, more than 1.3 thousand million of the
world's inhabitants live on less than 1 dollar a day? These people, the number of
whom has increased by 80 million in less than 10 years, be they men or women,
are certainly not thinking about taking part in the Olympic Games today. Their
only objective, each day, is to assuage their hunger. We must therefore always put
things into perspective and, above all, look at them calmly. Inclusion, democracy,
and a better distribution of food and work will, little by little, enable people to
think about the joys of sport. That is when it will be time to think about parity between
men and women at the Olympic Games.
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