AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
- The world of climbing is facing accusations of sexualizing a female athlete over inappropriate TV images of her.
- Twice in recent months broadcasters have shown zoomed-in footage of climber Johanna Färber's butt.
- The most recent incident happened at last week's World Championships in Moscow.
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The world of elite rock climbing is facing complaints over the sexualization of a female athlete after broadcasters showed zoomed-in footage of her butt on two separate occasions in recent months.
During the semifinal of the women's bouldering event at the Climbing World Championships in Moscow last week, broadcasters showed a tightly-cropped, zoomed in image of Austrian athlete Johanna Färber's butt, displaying two chalk hand prints.
No footage of the incident is available online, with the official YouTube broadcast of the event now skipping 10 seconds at the moment the zoomed shot was initially broadcast.
In a very clearly edited section, the timer in the bottom right hand side of the screen – which counts the time athletes have left on their current segment – skips from 3:40 remaining to 3:30 remaining in a single second.
According to Inside the Games, commentator Matt Groom apologized live on air as soon as the images were shown.
The official broadcast includes Groom saying: "So, let's get back to the action," immediately after the incident.
Inside the Games adds that later in the broadcast another commentator, Hannah Meul, also criticized the shot.
After the incident, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), the sport's governing body, issued an apology to Färber, slamming the "objectification" of her body by the camera operators involved.
"The IFSC condemns the objectification of the human body and will take further action in order for it to stop, and to protect the athletes," it said.
-International Federation of Sport Climbing (@ifsclimbing) September 18, 2021
Färber ultimately finished 19th in the competition, missing out on the final.
Färber had already faced the same problem earlier in 2021
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer
The incident was the second time in just a few months that Färber has been the victim of unwanted attention from TV cameras. In June, at a World Cup event in Innsbruck, Austria, Färber was subjected to almost identical treatment, with cameras once again giving undue prominence to her butt.
At the time of the first incident, Färber took to social media to lament her treatment, calling it "disrespectful and upsetting."
"Honestly wtf? Having this slow-motion clip shown on NATIONAL TV and YouTube livestream is so disrespectful and upsetting," she said in an Instagram post at the time, per the Daily Mail.
"I'm an athlete and here to show my best performance. To be honest I do really feel so embarrassed to know that thousands of people saw this. We need to stop sexualizing women in sports and start to appreciate their performance."
As of Thursday, Färber appears to have deleted her Instagram page.
The dual incidents have caused consternation in the world of climbing, with one former athlete telling Sky News that such problems could discourage girls and women from taking up climbing.
"For this disrespectful incident to happen once again to the same athlete is very disappointing, at a time when more eyes are on the sport than ever before and more women and girls are being introduced to climbing," former GB athlete Natalie Berry said.
"While the intentions of the camera operators and editors may not be to sexualize an athlete and instead to focus on a visually interesting chalky hand print, in the context of the sexualization of women in sport throughout history, it's quite simply inappropriate."