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Speaker 1: Now it only took nearly twenty years to address, but

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Speaker 1: high school rowing teams will no longer be able to

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Speaker 1: have year fourteen students and their crews. So these were

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Speaker 1: young people in their sixth year of secondary school, and

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Speaker 1: of course having those guys in they gave their crews

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Speaker 1: an advantage because it had an extra year of training

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Speaker 1: and development. They're old, they were bigger, and it's been

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Speaker 1: a bugbear of many schools wanting a level playing field,

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Speaker 1: and they've been finding this for twenty years. On. Many

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Speaker 1: of the year fourteens were back at school finishing their

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Speaker 1: academic work because their good rowers and they wanted to

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Speaker 1: take advantage of rowing Schottish overseas, but they needed to

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Speaker 1: up their academic marks, so they went back to school.

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Speaker 1: But their schools there still included them in their rep

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Speaker 1: crews because why not. Don't look a gift elephant in

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Speaker 1: the mouth. Critics of that decision said the problem was

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Speaker 1: not just the young adults themselves, the year fourteens, but

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Speaker 1: also all the others at the school who missed out

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Speaker 1: on a place in the boat because the year fourteens

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Speaker 1: were there. Now, the first move to police the practice

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Speaker 1: involved putting age limits on rowing crews, but it still

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Speaker 1: saw some year fourteen students with birthdays just after the

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Speaker 1: cutoff competing, But while they were technically the right age,

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Speaker 1: they still brought an advantage of an extra year's training.

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Speaker 1: So now finally the year fourteens are gone, and that's

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Speaker 1: a good thing. It stopped the attitude of schools who

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Speaker 1: believed and win at any cost. It's returned fairness in sport,

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Speaker 1: and it was good decision making because it showed that

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Speaker 1: those struggling with rules on say, transgender athletes who've been

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Speaker 1: through puberty, that it is actually possible to be fair

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Speaker 1: if you're clear minded and decisive. For more from Early

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Speaker 1: Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news Talks it

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Speaker 1: be from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio