INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

The motivation for this internal debate arose in January, three
months after the meeting that gave the "green light for the project". It
was during a meeting in the VA institute, attended by the professional
committee, the board of the volleyball association, and elite sport unit
and male coaches who had players in the Academy. It was a meeting
about the boy's academy, and the tension between all the males in the
room was floating in the air. After each of the attendees had finished
his speech, the chairman of the professional committee asked me (one
of the only two women in a room of 25 attendees) to tell the
participants about the idea of adding the girls to the Volleyball
Academy.
At the beginning of my speech I noticed that many people in the
room were not listening. Some left and some were talking amongst
themselves. Subsequently, I changed my plans and delivered
mainstream speech that started with my own feeling, my dreams that
never came true as a player, and asked them to see instead of me, their
daughters, wives or sisters. When I was sure that they more or less
focused on me, I started to tell them about our plans, and ended with a
wish that it would not end like the "Selinger Project". At that point,
one of the leaders of the Volleyball Association stopped me and
started to say that it was all a big lie, that we never had the money,
that Dr Selinger never wanted to come and so forth. It is worth
acknowledging at this point that this man was a senior director and
that many men are intimidated by him. Everybody in the room
remained quiet, waiting for a development. I stood up, and confronted
his claims, supported it with facts and he became silent. I finished my
speech by stating that this level of argument was not for people at my
level, and then I left the room.
I knew I had gained an enemy, but I did not know what would
happen with the other members. However, I felt happy that I had
confronted him, and stood up for my values. Later on, I received many
phone calls from people who were witnesses during the event. Some
said that it was very good, some said that I should not have left the
room, but all of them were supportive. I believe that this meeting was
the most important point of the process, firstly because the discussion
was now not just constrained to the boardroom and was now
somewhat within the public domain. Secondly, people realized that
I'm not a "toy" that was there for decorative purposes.
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