Culture

IOC says no to women's ski jumping at 2010 Olympics

by Rob Peters | January 9, 2008 at 12:23 pm

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The International Olympic Committee is saying women's ski jumping won't be included because there are too few women competitors and no World Championships in the sport until the year before 2010.

See last week's coverage of the issue here.

The International Olympic Committee is sticking to its guns and is refusing to permit female ski-jumpers compete in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.

For more than a week the IOC has been battered publicly over its decision to exclude the women, saying the sport didn't meet minimum technical merits for inclusion in the Olympics.

And the federal and provincial governments weighed in as well, saying they would continue to pressure the IOC in the wake of a Canadian Human Rights Commission settlement between the mother of a Canadian ski jumper and the federal government, in which Ottawa agreed to press the case for inclusion with the IOC.

Here's the IOC explanation, taken from a written statement:

"'In November 2006 the IOC Executive Board reviewed the proposal of its Olympic Programme Commission (OPC - the commission responsible for proposing which sports and events should make up the Olympic Games) with regard to the possible inclusion of seven events proposed by their respective International Sport Federation."

"Having judged all seven events against a set of criteria - which includes the number of athletes participating in the sport, details of World Championships held to date - the Commission recommended that only one of the events put forward should be included. Those not included for 2010 were the events of Biathlon Mixed Relay, Bobsleigh and Skeleton Team Competition, Luge Team Competition, Alpine Skiing Nation Team Event, Curling Mixed Doubles, and Women's Ski Jumping.

"However, decisions to include an event at the Olympic Games are taken on technical merit and with a global perspective - universality being a fundamental principle of the Olympic Movement. With too few athletes competing in this event, and no World Championships until one year before the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, Women's Ski Jumping does not reach the necessary technical criteria and as such does not yet warrant a place alongside other Olympic events. With the technical merit of the event unchanged, the decision taken in November 2006 stands.