Forget for a moment that women are some of the best ski jumpers in the world. Forget that the person who holds the record on Vancouver’s jump site is actually American woman Lindsey Van. Forget that the International Ski Federation (FIS) voted 114-1 in 2006 to recommend inclusion of the women’s ski jump. Forget even the blatant sexism of FIS president Gian-Franco Kasper, who said in 2005 that ski jumping “seems not to be appropriate for the ladies from a medical point of view.” Forget that the Olympic charter reads that the IOC’s mission is “to encourage and support the promotion of women in sport at all levels and in all structures with a view to implementing the principle of equality of men and women,” and “Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.”
Forget all of that and consider that a judge ruled that the International Olympic Committee effectively has legal jurisdiction over the Canadian Government.
Dave Zirin, Women Ski Jumpers Grounded (via TMN)
This is a must read.
(via pterodactyls)
This whole fiasco just seems inane to me. Why the hell not have women’s ski jumping? Isn’t there a women’s branch of just about every other sport already? I’m not inclined to get up in arms about it because I think the Olympics should just kill itself already, never to ravage another city ever again… but geez. Just one more example of blatant hypocrisy from an institution that sells itself with a glossy mythology of bridging divides, including the whole world in one big sportsmanly romp of good clean fun. But hey, guess what, it’s total bullshit!
(via circumpolarnavigation)
Wasn’t the crux of the issue that there are only about 125 female ski jumpers in 16 countries? If we assume they’re split equally (which they’re not, so in some countries you could qualify almost by default), should you really be able to participate in the fucking olympics by being better than 7 other athletes?
In other sports, they get around low participation rates in certain countries by having a universal qualifying system (a minimum time/distance/etc), but the number of participants is so low for women’s ski jumping, that they wouldn’t be able to do that if they hoped to have enough people to actually warrant a competition.
(via blownspeakers) (via malloreigh)
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