Fair Equality of Opportunity, Luck Egalitarianism and Categories in Sport.

Standard pre-competition categories in sport are biological sex, weight, age and disability categories.  Justifying the use of these categories is important for sports policy, and turns on how fairness in sport is understood. A widely accepted account of fairness in sport is provided by Sigmund Loland, who, drawing on John Rawls’ theory of justice as fairness, appeals to ‘fair equality of opportunity’ and ‘luck egalitarianism’ to justify these pre-competition categories. I suggest that this is the wrong approach. Fair equality of opportunity and luck egalitarianism are important for organizing certain forms of handicap sport, which use performance and potential-performance categories, or which seek to handicap or compensate athletes for physical characteristics that are deemed unfair. However, in championship sport, such as the Olympics and World Championship Athletics, fair equality of opportunity and luck egalitarianism have little to do with justifying pre-competition categories. In championship sport, pre-competition categories are used to distinguish different types of athlete, with different sorts of body, so that excellent athletes can be identified