Dr. Riikka Turtiainen
University Lecturer in Digital Culture at the University of Turku, Finland. Her research interests focus on the equality of media sports, particularly representations of female athletes, social media and gender in the context of team sports, and athlete activists. She is one of the editors of the forthcoming book Women in a Digitized Sports Culture: Nordic Perspectives (2024, Routledge).
Email: rmturt@utu.fi
The official slogan of the 2024 Paris Olympics was “Games wide open”. It refers primarily to the unprecedented use of urban space, transforming the city center into a venue for the opening ceremony and a sports arena for certain sports. It can also be seen as a reference to equality in sports. As stated on the official website of the Games: “It’s about delivering Games that are more responsible, more inclusive, more equal and more spectacular than ever before”. However, the controversial reception of the opening ceremony with its intersectional representations designed by a queer director, and the media discourse on the questioning of the gender of the female boxers suggest that openness was not fully achieved.
For one of the sport’s legends and LGBTQ icons, these Games were in any case her last, as New Zealander Portia Woodman-Wickliffe announced that she would end her international rugby career at these Olympics. “One last dance with my sisters in Paris”, she ended her Instagram post at the beginning of July. As a Maori athlete, she has represented not only sexual minorities but also an ethnic minority in a sport considered very masculine. Portia Woodman-Wickliffe has dominated both the sevens and XVs rugby over a decade, breaking scoring records and showing her physical strength with incredible tackles. In civil life, she is married to another female rugby player, Renee Woodman-Wickliffe. The greatness of the Black Ferns star, therefore, lies in the fact that she has provided an unconventional representation of a female athlete with whom followers of sport from very different backgrounds have been able to identify. Her career came to a glorious end in terms of success when New Zealand won a second consecutive Olympic gold medal. But the interesting question is how the farewell of a retiring female player was framed in the media during the Olympics?
The media treatment of athletes who have announced their retirement has been studied mainly in the context of injuries, and in the case of athletes who have already retired, the focus has been on the media coverage of their mental health issues. There is often a public debate about the ‘right time’ for an athlete to end the career. Quitting because of injury or age is often seen in the media as an acceptable and honorable reason. Conversely, when an athlete actively chooses when to retire, the media may speculate that the retirement is either too early or that the career has gone on too long. In the case of 33-year-old Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, the media did not question her decision to quit after the Paris Olympics. At the end of the final match, the Eurosport commentator said that “one of the best ever” and her teammate Tyla King “leave on a high”, which could be interpreted here as meaning that their international sports careers have gone on long enough to reach a generally acceptable right time.
Woodman-Wickliffe’s retirement was also noticed on social media. She re-posted messages of support she received during the Olympics on her Instagram, such as a post by her former teammate Kayla McAlister in which she stated: “‘Give it to her’ All the best Sis @porshwoodman Bloody beast, enjoy the last ride”. The original publication was a compilation of Woodman-Wickliffe’s career highlights, which is a typical way to acknowledge the end of an athlete’s career, also in the mass media. In addition to highlighting achievements, the media tends in these situations to frame what is in itself a sad event as a joyful one. This was also the case with Woodman-Wickliffe: she was seen in Paris for the last time in international competition, but the news coverage did not mention it as a loss for fans who had to give up their idol or for a sport that lost one of its brightest stars. Instead, the media highlighted her importance to the sport as a whole and in particular her trailblazer role in the development of women’s rugby. The media coverage of the end of a sporting career, with all its metaphors, can therefore even be compared to obituaries.
During the Olympic Games broadcasts, Portia Woodman-Wickliffe was often picked for close-ups, even in the opening match, which she started from the bench. Woodman-Wickliffe herself took advantage of the media attention and the Olympic Committee’s new, more permissive social media guidelines by posting stories on Instagram about a Maori flag on the wall of her Olympic Village accommodation and her wife and daughter cheering her on at the stadium. Woodman-Wickliffe is said to have said after the Olympic final that her future plans include “lounging on the couch, eating Maccas and KFC and popping out babies”. However, there are rumors that she could be on her way to playing in the National Women’s Rugby League, and she herself has expressed an interest in becoming a rugby commentator, for example. Either way, she leaves a great legacy, and the field should be wide open to the former rugby star and the influential athlete whose expertise could be used in many different areas of sport.
