Administrators doing the two-step on transgender athletes

Pat Cash scales the Centre Court architecture after winning Wimbledon in 1987

It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right, put your hands on your hips and let someone else deal with the thorny issue of transgender women athletes.

As politicians tie themselves in knots over the issue, sports administrators are ducking and weaving and trying to find someone else to make the tough decisions.

The ARL Commission appears to have handballed the issue of whether transgender women should be able to play in the NRLW to the players.

They’re talking about taking another three months to come up with a policy, after consulting with “stakeholders” and “experts”. Reports are doing the rounds that a transgender women is about to make an application to play in the NRLW, which may concentrate a few minds at League Central.

Meanwhile, AOC boss John Coates deftly sidestepped the whole issue this week, flicking responsibility to individual sports.

“The sport needs to look at itself — even within a sport the benefit of being transgender varies as to what event you are in,” he said.

Coates, in one of his final appearances in front of the media as Australian Olympic sport’s Grand Poobah, recognised there is a problem to be dealt with.

“There is a place for transgender women, transgender people, but we have to make sure that girls are not being prejudiced by having to compete against them.”

Exactly. You wouldn’t think it would have to be this hard. The AFL seems to have come up with a policy based on fairness, which prevents transgender women competing against cisgender players if they have an “unreasonable competitive advantage”.

Before they can play in the AFLW or any other women’s footy competition, transgender women must submit to testosterone tests and be below a limit of 5nmol/L for at least 24 months. Weight, height, bench press maximums and sprint times are also taken into consideration.

But the smartest voice in the room on this whole can of worms this week has been swimmer Emily Seebohm, who understands what it means for female athletes but also gets the nuances and isn’t about to be caught up in the politics.

Seebohm was quick to support her swim teammate Emma McKeon, who had said she didn’t want to have females racing against swimmers who were biologically male.

“Biological males are always going to be faster and stronger,” Seebohm said.

But she was just as quick to ­express her outrage when conservative lobby group Advance Australia stuck pictures of her and McKeon on a billboard beside the slogan “women’s sport is not for men”.

“I have no idea who Advance Australia is but … I don’t want my photo next to something saying transphobic,” she said.

“I’ve not once said that I don’t want inclusivity in this sport. I want everyone to feel included in this sport, we just have to work out how that works and how this will look.”

Wright way to talk

Speaking of athletes talking sense, AWAAT’s award for interview of the week goes to Aussie surfer Tyler Wright, for forgetting about the media training and just telling us how she feels.

In an era when interviews with sports stars produce little more than “credit to the boys”, “we stuck to the game plan”, “we knew they’d come out hard” or “yeah, nah”, Wright is as honest as they come.

Plenty of World Surf League competitors keep it light in interviews back on the beach and want to show no signs of weakness. They’re stoked about everything. Super-stoked in some cases. Never surfed better.

Wright isn’t afraid to admit the truth. She won her first-round heat at Margaret River this week, fresh off her win at Bells Beach, but rather than project an image of invincibility, she’s come out of the water and said of the lack of swell before the event: “It’s been really hard. That’s probably why I have a fair amount of anxiety. Just because I haven’t really caught any waves out here. I’m just dealing with the anxiety levels from not having a full preparation.”

She’s cruised through to round three as if she doesn’t have a care in the world but admitted: “Feeling not as settled as I was at Bells which does, for me, create a lot of anxiety. The heat felt good but my anxiety levels are so high.

“Yet I can still perform and that blows my mind.”

How good is that? A real human being.

Cash for votes

A good tennis grand slam victory celebration is hard to beat — particularly if players respond to the joy of it all with spontaneity and originality.

And to show that just about anything can be turned into a competition these days, the International Tennis Hall of Fame is asking fans to vote on the most iconic celebrations in the game’s history. There are some beauties on the shortlist, including: Kim Clijsters bringing her toddler Jada on court to celebrate her win in the 2009 US Open just months after coming out of retirement.

Then there’s Czech Petr Korda doing scissor kicks and cartwheels at the 1998 Australian Open; and Jim Courier diving in the Yarra River in 1992.

But the greatest of them — well, the one that gets my vote — is Aussie Pat Cash dispatching Ivan Lendl 7-6 (5) 6-2 7-5 in the 1987 Wimbledon final and then using the shoulders of a fan and the roof of the press box to help him clamber into the players’ box to celebrate with family and friends. Great scenes.

Incidentally, I loved the sign in the crowd that day, which appears in a couple of the pictures of Cash’s climb: “Cash is better than a Czech.”

Get along to tennisfame.com to vote for your favourite.

Ticket to pot of gold

And finally ... next time you go to a football game and a debutant has a good game, hang on to the match ticket … it could be worth a squillion down the track if the youngster goes on to be a superstar.

A match ticket from the game where 17-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo made his debut for Sporting FC in Portugal recently sold for just north of $200,000.

A faded and creased ticket from the 1958 match in which Pele made his debut for Brazil fetched $195,000.

And if you were there in 2003 when Lionel Messi came on as a late substitute in his first game for Barcelona – against FC Porto – your ticket is worth about $165,000.

Apparently there are people who collect such things and are prepared to pay big coin.

[e-mail] @walmason