Women Need Not Apply

U.S. Ski Jumpers Left Out In Olympic Cold

(CBS)  Before the women are eligible for Olympic competition, they need to hold a world championship. But their ability to do so is determined by the International Federation of Skiing — and some members of federation's governing board aren't so sure women jumpers are ready for that.

The FIS would have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to put on a world championship for women jumpers. FIS president Gian Franco Casper isn't sure the women warrant that kind of substantial investment. He suggests that their numbers might still be too small.

"Actually, they are all jumping, but not all are really jumping. Six or seven of them are really jumping," Casper said in a telephone interview. "There are a few really jumping, but a few, in very few nations."

More than 120 women from 14 countries are registered with the International Federation of Skiing as ski jumpers. Nearly half of them are qualified to compete internationally; ski jumping boasts more seasoned competitors than women's bobsled and skeleton had when those sports were added to the Games in 2002.

"If you have a new sport, it’s automatic that women and men are put in," said coach Colby. "But if men already compete, it’s such a long and frustrating process.

Although the FIS board has already decided in principle to build women's ski jumping into an Olympic-level sport, a May vote will determine whether they have a shot at inclusion by 2010 — when Van will be 25 years old.

The Gender Debate

Lingering fears about safety may also have an impact on the FIS' vote in May. Sailing smoothly off a 90-meter jump and landing well has about the same impact on the body as jumping straight down two meters (about 6½ feet), Casper said. Olympic-caliber jumpers do that about 1,000 times each year. For women, this could have serious affect on the uterus and abdomen — or so doctors thought, until recently.

"I’m not a doctor, but nowadays our doctors are less frightened about the health effects of jumping for women," Casper said.

Injuries are rare for the Park City jumpers. Van’s only major injury in more than a decade of jumping was unrelated to training or jumping.

Despite trying to erase safety concerns, advocates of Olympic inclusion for these women fear that the ski federation isn’t considering the physical differences between men and women.

"Women aren’t built the same way that men are; that’s the thing we’re battling with," Johnson said, resentful that some of the FIS members judge jump lengths and body-fat content of women jumpers against the men’s longstanding numbers. "We shouldn’t be compared to men."

It is relatively common for women’s Olympic competitions to have different, more physically restrictive rules than men’s competitions.

While the IOC justifies gender-based regulations as necessary for the safety of female athletes, women have seen the rules as discriminatory obstacles — and have pushed to prove their physical ability to execute the thought-to-be impossible.

In a now-famous nose-thumbing of judges and Olympic rule makers, French figure skater Surya Bonaly back-flipped — illegally — during her long program at Nagano in 1998. Stone has fought for women’s right to perform moves such as triple backflips in women’s freestyle aerials.

U.S. women ski jumpers are fighting simply to jump — in the most visible amateur athletic competition on earth.