An UN-equal 31st Birthday! by Nick-at-Will Nicol David enjoying her 31st birthday cake in Hong Kong, presented by friend and teammate Wee Wern Low.
August 26, 2014 Today…Tuesday,
August 26th, the world’s #1 female squash-player for eight years,
seven-time world champion Nicol David…turns 31! Hearty congratulations
are in order to this great champion!
However, it’s not much
of a squash championship birthday gift or celebration, as Nicol enters
the 2014 Hong Kong Squash Open as the #1 seed, where the prize-money
for the men and women is anything but equal, the men receiving
$150,000, the women receiving just about half of that. What’s up with
the Hong Kong Open organizers?
US Squash recently
announced that the prize purse for the 2014 Delaware Investments U.S.
Open will provide equal prize money ($115,000) for both the men’s and
women’s championships. The purse will be the largest in U.S. Open
history and one of the largest in worldwide professional squash. This
is the first men’s and women’s World Series level event to offering
prize-money parity. Why won’t the other world professional squash
events follow!?
For the Hong Kong
Open, it would have been so easy to have the prize-money split,
awarding $113,500 to both the men and women. But no…same-old, same-old
chauvinistic mentality and mind-set, that the men deserve more
prize-money than the women…for what!?
Are they (the men)
better athletes, do they train harder, do they need to play more points
per game, do they need to play more games to win a match? The answer is
of course…NO! No offence…but how about the men being as or more
attractive to the viewing (live and/or television) audiences!? Well…no
comment on that one!
In this author's
opinion, the World Squash Federation needs to step in and have a
serious talk with the PSA and WSA organizers, sponsors and host
venues…to see what can be done to (finally) follow the lead of the U.S.
Open - and have equal prize-money offered to both the men and women in
all world squash events where they share the same court over any given
weekend.
Maybe…just maybe
professional squash would then have the appeal and deserved respect to
bring it to the attention of the IOC for Olympic Game inclusion.
Until then…well!
Once again, we and the
squash world wish Nicol a great 31st birthday and successful tournament
there in Hong Kong on her birthday.
