Grounded

In ski jumping, one major challenge is to jump a long distance.

The distance women will have to cover to get equal access to the winter Olympics in ski jumping, has been enlarged by the International Olympic Committee in 2006: The IOC rejected the establishment of women’s ski jumping at the Olympic Games in Vancouver next year due to technical reasons.

Ski jumping and Nordic combined (a combination of ski jumping and cross country skiing) are the only winter Olympics sports that are reserved for men.

The main reason being that the amount of organized women ski jumpers does not reach the IOC’s minimum requirement (rule 47 of the Olympic Charter), the IOC failed to explain one interesting point: The number of organized men ski jumpers also fails to reach the minimum requirement, but for men there has been an exception to this rule for decades.

After the IOC’s decision, some female ski jumpers from several countries brought the case to the supreme court of British Columbia, the Canadian state hosting the Olympics. The court ruled that "the plaintiffs will be denied this opportunity for no reason other than their sex," but the IOC was not subject to the jurisdiction of the British Columbia Supreme Court.

The International Ski Federation has re-proposed to the IOC to include women’s ski jumping on the program of the winter Olympics 2014 in Sochi.  Let’s hope the distance women ski jumpers have to cover to get equal access to the Olympic Games won’t be longer than that!

--- by Nils ---