02 December 2019

Canada's women's curling teams to receive same prize money as men

Canada's women's curling teams have achieved pay parity with their male counterparts.

This means that the champions of the women's tournament, which this year was Alberta, will receive $105,000 for taking the title, the same amount as the men's winners.

Curling Canada's CEO, Katherine Henderson, said: "This is really important for me. I'm a female executive. I watch how much time, blood, sweat and tears these women put into this.

"I always knew it was the right thing to do. There's no looking back."

Pay parity has been priority for Henderson since she was appointed to the top job back in 2016.

"It's not that we didn't know what the right thing to do was — it was just taking the right steps to get there and make it sustainable," she added.

"It's played by women, fans are women and I want to see it run equally by men and women. If you take a look across industries, you want to get equal pay for equal work."

Last years female winner won just $59,000 compared to the men's $100,500. 

And Henderson has said bringing equality to the sport is something both female and male players wanted.

She said: "They all want this. The men curlers wanted this too and were specific about that. They see these women as world-class athletes.

"We're a top echelon sport and we want to be around for a long time. And we want our athletes to be invested in properly."

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