It's time to bar Saudi Arabia from Olympic competition

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At the Olympics, race or religion is irrelevant. We’re all just here to do sport.” ­– Ruqaya Al-Ghasara, devout Muslim and the first female Olympian to compete veiled from head to toe. (2004)

Dick Pound, Canada’s representative on the International Olympic Committee, is absolutely correct when he says that group has made great strides in the equality of women in the games.

Consider the organizers of the ancient Olympics put unmarried women to death for simply attending the event, and when the modern games were founded in 1896 women were barred from competing as it was thought their inclusion would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect.”

So yeah — we’ve come a long way, baby.

With every single Olympic sport now open to female competitors — boxing was the lone holdout and it will be included in the 2012 games — this marathon is practically on its last leg.

So it’s time to disqualify Saudi Arabia from the race.

Last week, an international human-rights group called for the IOC to consider barring Saudi Arabia from the games unless that country opens its team to women, and moves to improve physical education and opportunities for Saudi girls.

Saudi Arabia is one of three countries that fields men, but never women, in the Olympics, and the only country that is prohibited by national law from selecting women for its team.

The call for exclusion is not without precedent or law. In 2000, Afghanistan was barred from the Sydney Olympics, in part because of its treatment of women. Apartheid kept South Africa from the games and the Olympic Charter precludes discrimination.

At first blush, it might seem the fielding of a Saudi women’s beach-volleyball squad would mark only a symbolic victory. However, it would necessarily require funding for a women’s Olympic program, investment in sport for Saudi women and eventually a reversal of the law that forbids sports for girls in Saudi state schools.

At the Olympics, race or religion is irrelevant. We’re all just here to do sport.
Sport is a human right.

Any nation that does not recognize this basic fact does not deserve a spot on an international stage of excellence.