Sports
Female boxer steps down from Quebec championship fight after being told opponent is a man
Dr. Katia Bissonnette and ‘Mya’ Walmsley
From LifeSiteNews
Dr. Katia Bissonnette’s male opponent criticized her for speaking to the press about why she didn’t want to fight him
A female boxer withdrew from a Quebec championship fight after learning that her competitor was a man claiming to be a woman.
On November 15, Dr. Katia Bissonnette revealed why she stepped down from the 2023 Provincial Golden Glove Championship in Victoriaville, Quebec upon discovering that her opponent, “Mya” Walmsley, is a biological male just hours before she was set to fight him. Bissonnette had been set to face him during the October 27 and 29 competitions.
“I came down from my hotel room to head towards the room where all the boxers were warming up,” Bissonnette told Reduxx. “My coach suddenly took me aside and told me he received information by text message, which he had then validated, that my opponent was not a woman by birth. We did not have any other additional information.”
It was safety concerns which caused her to withdraw from the match: Bissonnette cited a 2020 study by the University of Utah which revealed the differences between strength in men and women. The research showed that “a male blow has 163% more impact than a women’s, even adjusted for weight.”
“In the group studied, the weakest man remains physically superior to the strongest woman,” Bissonnette added.
She explained that if men are allowed to compete against women in combat sports, women will soon leave the sport rather than fight against men.
“Women shouldn’t have to bear the physical and psychological risks brought by a man’s decisions regarding his personal life and identity,” Bissonnette continued. “There should be two categories: biological male and female.”
According to Bissonnette, Boxing Canada rules forbade the Quebec Boxing Federation from informing competitors if they will face biological men who claim to be women to prevent the men from being “discriminated against.”
“However, after confirmation, this policy only applies when a sex change has taken place before puberty,” she explained.
Walmsley, an Australian, moved to Canada two years ago to attend Concordia University. His fight with Bissonnette would have been his first recorded fight in Canada against a woman. It is unclear if he fought in the women’s category in Australia.
“[Walmsley] would have boxed as a man in Australia,” Bissonnette said. “In Quebec, on his file, it is mentioned that he had 0 fights as a woman.”
The Quebec Boxing Federation justified their decision by saying that they had chosen an appropriate referee for the match. Following Bissonnette’s withdrawal from the competition, Walmsley won by default.
However, Walmsley did not seem content with his victory, instead condemning Bissonnette for speaking to the press about Walmsley being a male, and Bissonnette’s decision not to fight.
“Rather than turning to me, my coach or the Quebec Olympic Boxing Federation for more information, she decided to turn directly to the media to out me,” Walmsley whined.
“This kind of behavior puts athletes at risk of being excluded or receiving personal attacks based on hearsay … I am afraid that this type of accusation could eventually be used to delegitimize athletes in the women’s category and justify arbitrary and invasive regulations,” he continued, apparently choosing not to address Bissonnette’s safety concerns.
Indeed, Bissonnette’s concerns are well founded in both scientific research and incidents where women did face biological men claiming to be women in combat sports.
A notorious case is that of Fallon Fox, a male cage fighter who claims to be a woman, who openly posted about how he enjoys hurting women in his fights.
“For the record, I knocked [two] women out,” he bragged, in response to criticism for participating in the women’s division of the violent sport.
“One woman’s skull was fractured, the other not. And just so you know, I enjoyed it. See, I love smacking up TE[R]Fs in the cage who talk transphobic nonsense. It’s bliss. Don’t be mad,” he gloated.
TERF, which stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist,” is an insult used by transgender activists to describe any woman who will not say that biological males are, or can become, women.
Many female athletes are standing up to the LGBT mob to reclaim women’s sports for biological women.
One champion is former University of Kentucky and All-American swimmer Riley Gaines. She has made dozens of media appearances in recent years, bringing attention to the NCAA’s decision to allow William “Lia” Thomas to swim against females. Predictably, Thomas went from being one of the lowest-ranked male swimmers in the country to an above-average female one, even winning the 500-yard freestyle national championship.
Bruce Dowbiggin
Why Do The Same Few Always Get The Best Sports Scoops?
The Toronto Maple Leafs made the “what colour is that green light?” decision to fire their head coach Sheldon Keefe last week. The removal of Keefe after five years followed a dispiriting first-round playoff series loss to a very ordinary Boston Bruins team. Coaching may or may not have been the root cause of that loss. (Keefe himself admitted “teams are waiting for the Leafs to beat themselves”.)
The real reason for the firing is 1967, and we don’t think we need add more than that.
In essence, the management of MLSE— the owner of the Maple Leafs and a lot of other sports stuff in Toronto— needed to throw a body to the baying hounds of disappointment. Also known as Leafs Nation. Newly minted CEO Keith Pelley, fresh from the PGA Tour/ LIV psychodrama, was certainly not going to pay the price.
Nor was GM Brad Treliving who has only been on the job for two seasons. The key decisions on Toronto’s lopsided salary cap were decided long before Treliving occupied his desk. That left two people in vulnerable positions. 1) Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, who has been drawing an MLSE cheque for a decade. 2) Keefe.
When was the last time you saw a coach fire a team president? Precisely. Keefe joins the list of (briefly) unemployed coaches who circulate in the NHL like McKinsey consultants. Shanahan gets a lukewarm mulligan from Pelley. But after the failure of the Kyle Dubas experiment— “who needs experience?”— and now just a single playoff series win in a decade Shanny’s best-before date has arrived.
Depending on who he and Treliving enlist to coach— remember, Mike Babcock was too tough and Keefe was probably too player friendly— it had better produce instant results. Because Shanny, the pride of Mimico, is out of chances. The coach choice will also be affected by whichever player or players that management decides are superfluous to ending the Leafs’ ridiculous run of misery.
The Leafs brass’ press conference last Thursday did little to shed light on what happens after Keefe’s expulsion. Just a lot of MBA determinism on a bed of baffle gab. A crabby Steve Simmons question/rant briefly threatened the harmony of the moment, but order was restored. And the media bitching switched from the press box to social media and podcasts.
Speaking of the fourth estate, the other unmentioned aspect of this story— indeed every story in the NHL these days— is just how it was revealed to the public. When people sipped their morning Tim’s or Starbucks the (almost) coincident bulletins came down the social media pike about Keefe’s dismissal.
Predictably, Chris Johnston of Sportsnet and Daren Dreger of TSN announced the breaking news within heart beats of each other. While there had been speculation on Keefe’s fate for days, the announcement coming from the networks duo confirmed the story in the minds of the industry. That allowed everyone else drawing a cheque as a hockey journalist to pile in and swarm the dead body.
In today’s sports journalism, where social media has replaced newspapers, scoops are governed by a protocol. There are the heralds— in the NHL it’s currently Johnston and Dreger— and then there are the disseminators. The days of a rabble of reporters all scrambling to get a story bigger than who-will-play-in-tonight’s-game are gone. Today, it’s a very narrow funnel for scoops.
It’s the same in the NFL where Ian Rappaport (NFL Network) and Adam Schefter (ESPN) monopolize the tasty scoops on behalf of their employers, who also happen to be NFL rights holders. In the NBA, Brian Windhorst (ESPN) has the inside rail when it comes to the LeBron James/ Steph Curry scoops. In MLB… it’s probably Ken Rosenthal (The Athletic) but no one cares about baseball anymore, do they?
The leagues like it this way, doling out stories to guys they can trust. None of this is criticism of Johnston or Dreger, who have deftly maneuvered themselves into the coveted “from their lips to your ears” spots. From our own experience we can remember the exhilaration of having the best source or sources on the really big stories. Like Johnston/ Dreger, we worked hard for a long time to develop those sources and only very reluctantly let anyone else horn in on our stories.
It was also our observation that this order of things journalistic suited a lot of reporters who either couldn’t get good sources or didn’t want the stress of being first on stuff. It was enough that, like the Keefe story, they’d get the goods eventually and most fans would not care who was first. So long as you had a take. So be it.
Some resentful types took potshots at our work if it upset their pals in the dressing room or the management suite. On the Stephen Ames/ Tiger Woods story in 2001, we had the late Pat Marsden tell us on air that we’d done a great job on Ames’ criticisms of Tiger. Only to hear him lambaste us— again on FAN 590— only minutes later as we listened driving home from the studio. But we digress.
Many reporters are complacent in playing the game, so long as their bosses didn’t enquire why they are getting scooped all the time by the same few rivals. With the death of daily newspapers that doesn’t happen much any longer. (Many editors today may only see stories when publication brings a libel notice.) For them a salty take is good enough.
The scoop business is also affected by the multiple roles now demanded of sports media types. In addition to their “day job” on a beat they also have to supply digital content and talk-back hits to the Mother Ship. Most also are feeding a weekly podcast, dictating time on air rather than time working the phone. There are only so many hours in a day to chase a story.
Better to play the Breaking News waiting game.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the publisher of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. Now for pre-order, new from the team of Evan & Bruce Dowbiggin . Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL & Changed Hockey. From Espo to Boston in 1967 to Gretz in L.A. in 1988 to Patrick Roy leaving Montreal in 1995, the stories behind the story. Launching in paperback and Kindle on #Amazon this week. Destined to be a hockey best seller. https://www.amazon.ca/Deal-Trades-Stunned-Changed-Hockey-ebook/dp/B0D236NB35/
Alberta Sports Hall of Fame and Museum
THE HALFTIME REPORT News from the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame
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