Climber Johanna Farber furious after broadcast ‘sexualizes’ competition

The camera crew apparently lost focus.

A closeup of competitor Johanna Farber’s buttocks was focused on during the broadcast of the Climbing World Championships in Moscow, according to multiple reports.

The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC), the sport’s governing body, issued an apology to Farber on Sunday. 

“The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) would like to deeply apologize to Johanna Färber, Austria Climbing, all the athletes, and the entire Sport Climbing community for the images that were broadcast today during the women’s Boulder semi-final at the IFSC Climbing World Championships Moscow 2021,” the federation said in a statement. “The IFSC condemns the objectification of the human body and will take further action in order for it to stop, and to protect the athletes.”

IFSC president Marco Scholaris chimed in with his own personal statement condemning the broadcast, and referenced a past incident involving inappropriate imagery of Farber on television.

“How many times will things have to be done wrong before we learn how to do them right?” Scholaris said. 

The IFSC’s host broadcaster had to issue a similar apology after airing inappropriate images of Farber during the World Cup in Innsbruck in June.

Farber condemned the broadcaster’s misplaced focus with an Instagram post shortly after the World Cup. 

“Honestly wtf?” Farber wrote on Instagram, according to Daily Mail. “Having this slow-motion clip shown on NATIONAL TV and YouTube live stream is so disrespectful and upsetting.

“I’m an athlete and here to show my best performance. To be honest I do really feel so embarrassed to know that thousands of people saw this. We need to stop sexualizing women in sports and start to appreciate their performance.”

Former Great Britain climber and editor-in-chief of Climbing.com, Natalie Berry, also condemned the broadcast blunders in an interview with Sky News. 

“For this disrespectful incident to happen once again to the same athlete is very disappointing, at a time when more eyes are on the sport than ever before and more women and girls are being introduced to climbing,” Berry said.

“While the intentions of the camera operators and editors may not be to sexualise an athlete and instead to focus on a visually interesting chalky handprint, in the context of the sexualisation of women in sport throughout history, it’s quite simply inappropriate.”