Women's Ski Jumping

If you do not follow skiing outside of every four years, you might not have noticed, but there is no women's ski jumping in the Olympics. This is the only sport in the Winter Olympics that does not have a women's event. It used to be that boxing was the only other sport without a women's event in the Olympics. The IOC recently voted to add women's boxing. So now it is just women's ski jumping that is being excluded from competing on the biggest stage in amateur sports.

Members of teams from the USA, Canada and other countries fought to get into the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. They ran into a lot of resistance at the top. Some of the men running things actually said that they didn't believe it was good for women's health to ski jump. (I'm curious how boxing is ok but jumping is harmful.) They didn't let that stop them though and they took their case to court in Canada. Since VANOC, the organizing committee, used public funding to build event sites the athletes used an equality law to fight their case to be included in the Olympics. Unfortunately, the courts decided that it was not VANOC's fault but rather the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that prevented them from competing. Therefore the courts did not feel they could make VANOC include them. This is an extremely sad outcome for all of the athletes involved in Women's Ski Jumping. The American team had support in our country when it was thought they would be an Olympic sport. Now that they are not competing in the 2010 Olympics they are on their own. The members of Women's Ski Jumping USA are some of the best in the world. In fact Lindsey Van is the reigning World Champion. She also holds the record for the hill in Whistler. Unfortunately, she will not be able to compete in the Olympics until 2014 if the IOC sees fit to finally add the event. In the meantime the athletes have to raise money just to pay their coach and get to competitions in Europe and Asia. If you want to help please check out their website listed below. They are a non-profit so your donation is tax deductible. This is an amazing group of girls and they deserve to compete at the highest level.

If you are interested in learning more there is a story in Time Magazine, a video on MSNBC and you can always check out the Women's Ski Jumping USA website. I'm attaching links for all of them.

Time Magazine:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1963447,00.html

MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/35320777#35320777

Women's Ski Jumping USA:
http://www.wsjusa.com/