ESPN Outside the Lines looks at women ski jumpers shut out of Olympics
By Ryan
We covered the exclusion of women’s ski jumping from the Winter Olympics earlier, and now this Sunday ESPN’s Outside the Lines takes a deeper look at at the controversy. From ESPN:
Outside the Lines (Sunday, Feb. 14, 9am ET ESPN)
Ski jumping, an Olympic sport for men since the first Games in 1924, is the only sport other than Nordic Combine at the 2010 Vancouver Games that doesn’t include women. While the International Ski Federation says more than 150 women from 17 countries compete at an elite level, women jumpers, led by American Lindsey Van, have unsuccessfully fought for inclusion at the Olympics for the past decade. David Amber reports.
“I definitely think it’s sexist because they’re leaving out a group of great athletes that can perform at a very high level. I think they’re leaving us out because they don’t know how to deal with us quite yet.” — Lindsey Van, Gold medalist at the first Women’s Ski Jumping World Championships last March
“To become an Olympic sport, a sport must be widely practiced around the world and have a big appeal. This is not the case for women’s ski jumping. There is no discrimination whatsoever.” — Jacques Rogge, IOC President
At an age when some kids are mastering their first 10-speed, American ski jumper Lindsey Van was traveling internationally and winning junior ski jump competitions. Interviewed after a winning jump, a then 11-year-old Van said her goal was to make the women’s Olympic team in 2002. Now it is 2010, and though more than nine nations have women jumpers registered with the International Ski Federation (FIS), and women jumpers’ enrollment in the organization is nearly equal to that of men, there still isn’t a women’s ski jumping event at the Olympics.
