March Madness is here—and this year, the annual NCAA college basketball tournament looks more different than ever, thanks to precautions to prevent the spread of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
That challenge has made staging the event an exercise in caution, especially when it comes to the facilities used by competitors when they’re not playing on court. Players will be kept in a “bubble” environment as the tournament progresses to limit exposure. But as organizers attempted to create an environment for the participants to train and live while staying safe, some people are pointing out the clear visual disparities between accommodations for the spaces made for men’s tournament competitors in Indiana and those made for women’s tournament competitors in Texas.
The controversy stems from the strength and conditioning facilities for the athletes. Stanford Women’s Basketball sports performance coach Ali Kershner, M.S., C.S.C.S. shared a photo of the setup in Texas for the women’s competitors—which included a weight tree of small denomination dumbbells and “sanitized yoga mats”—with a picture of the Men’s setup in Indiana, which was filled with weight racks, barbells, and heavy plates.
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