Breasts Barred From 2010 Olympic Ski Jumping

Such is the IOC.  Traditionally a very stogy group of chauvinists, even the women involved there.  Politics in sports   .

Don't know that much about women's Nordic jumping; but if Van holds the hill record is gender that big of a deal in jumping? 

Would it be reasonable for the women to compete against the men?  From an uninformed perspective would seem this is an event where being lighter would be an advantage.  You want to be a kite up there right? 

Would really be neat to see an Olympic event (other than curling) where men and women can compete against each other on equal footing.

I have no interest in seeing men compete against women . Having women compete in all the same but separate events as men do is only fair.  Women and men have advantages in some sports because of their general differences.  Competing against each other would open a large can of worms  better left sealed .

As long as old men make the rules then changes of chauvinism will not occur very soon.


BTW Women have genitalia. You just gotta look very close. Go give it a try.


Edited by GarryZ - 8/9/2009 at 10:47 pm GMT

 I'm sure there are sports that only women compete in. Big deal.

No, I won't boycott watching all the dedicated athletes who have put years of their lives into reaching the Olympics because of this ruling. It sucks that things are as they are, but ignoring the good to protest the evil is kinda throwing the baby out with the bathwater, and that would be a silly thing to do.

This issue was never about women competing against men.  It was about the women's jumping event not being included at these games.

 To me this is like Etchells sailors complaining about not being in the Olympics. Solings are, if you want to go to the Olympics sail a Soling. Women have many opportunities to compete in the Olympics. Ski jumping is not one of them.

I think they should let her jump against the men.  Are they trying to say that a woman's body shape makes a better airfoil than a man's?  Anyway, the let these guys jump, why not let Lindsey Van?

That sucks!! Let women jump!!

Lindsey's father Barry. lives just up the street from me.  They have been lobbying & battling for womens jumping in the Olympics for many years.  It is really sad, as Ski Jumping has been around since the first Winter Olympics in 1924 at Chamonix.  So many new events have been added over the years, that didn't even exist when Winter Olympics began.  These ladies have trained long & hard, just as the men have.  Let's hope they get it in for 2014.
 IOC.
JF

I bet Eddie The Eagle had his eye on the breasts when he run off the runway....

Classic!

These things are a bit different, then presented in media. Realistically, women ski jumping doesn't really exist as real sport. There's less then 40 or 50 women ski jumpers on whole World, so this is main reason why IOC doesn't go for it. It's nothing against women, or anything like this, but realistically there's bunch of other sport disciplines which have way more potential, and are still not included into Olympics.


Hill records are not same thing as for example 100m running World record. With ski jumping it depends on inrun height and on conditions. Most of hill records are actually held by nordic combined guys and not ski jumpers. Why? Simply because they let them go down from much higher inruns then they do on ski jumping races. I'm pretty sure same thing was with Lindsey and her hill record. There's huge difference if your inrun speed is around 90km/h or around 95km/h, and that's normally difference they have between ski jumping races and nordic combined races.
So holding hill record doesn't mean she would actually be better then someone else with same inrun speed ;)

Let me try this again, NO.  I see no reason to boycott watching the Olympics. I see no discrimination here, just a very small group of competitors that don't represent a large enough contingent to justify an Olympic competition, and some oversensitive folks blowing things way out of proportion in a PC tantrum.

Referring to this as a human rights issue cheapens the meaning of the term, there is no harm being done to anyone, no torture, nothing needful for a fruitful life is being denied.

Please lay off of the hyperbole, it's just plain silly.

40-50 competitive female ski jumpers at Continental Cup level (since there's no WC for them yet). However, the sport is growing and the success of e.g. Anette Sagen is inspiring young Norwegian girls to venture into what has traditionally been a boys' stronghold. Those 40-50 competitors were enough to put female ski jumping on the program at this year's Nordic World Championships. Yet still they have to fight for the right to jump on the big hills like Planica and Vikersund. They have been discriminated against at every step of the way - the old farts running FIS don't believe girls can do it and they don't want them upsetting the apple cart - and the best means the girls have of making progress is by proving they can jump and embarassing the hell out of the establishment.

The IOC make their case that too few nations are represented, and that there are too few top level competitors. That may be a fair assessment, but it sure as hell smarts given the fight these girls have had to get where they are today. With olympic exposure women's ski jumping could receive a huge boost, in recruitment, sponsorship... the whole kit and caboodle. Sadly that ain't gonna happen in 2010 :(

Quote: I can easily be wrong about this, so take this as my opinion only, nothing more. I was never in Vikersund, but I have been shooting ski flying WC in Planica for years, and I saw many a bit less experienced jumpers making smaller mistakes ending in ER, or even finishing their career due consequences of single small mistake... Mistake, which wouldn't even "qualify" for fall in normal hills.
From this what I saw on women races, I admit I saw only 2 or 3 of them, I can say they are technically far from Continental cup men jumpers, and even further from World cup jumpers. So with something like this, I can understand somehow, they don't want to see them on big flying hills. Imagine worse thing happens and you have 5 almost dead girls on end of race. And falling somewhere around 100m mark in Planica is not nice. Unfortunately I have seen this, and it takes whole bunch of thumbling down the 40+ degrees icy hill, most of times with jumper being unconcious. So it's definitely not nice sight, and definitely not something you want to show to people around the world, as representation of particular sport.
Another issue is flying 220 or 230m. I really doubt most of girls are capable of doing this, even with higher inrun speed. I believe there are 2 or 3 of them capable of doing this, but to have at least kinda safe race, you have to consider inrun speed to be proper for huge majority of them, not for 2 or 3 best ones. This way you would most likely get jumps around 120 or 130m, which is something noone will come to see. And as someone said, it really is all about the money.... if we like it or not.

Planica is a monster - no doubt about that. Bjørn Einar Romøren is a local hero - I can't imagine jumping 239m

Vikersund is also K-185 with the hill size being 207m. The official record is 219m, but Børge Blikeng jumped 220,5m as forejumper earlier this year. Several of the girls were due to be forejumpers on the same day as Blikeng, but the jury denied them after being scared by Blikeng's jump. The next day Anette Sagen jumped 177m, although she admittedly fell on landing.

Conclusion? I'm not sure. The best girls are jumping 40-50m short of the longest men's jumps on a flying hill like Vikersund. They're only 20-30m behind the "average" men, and they're clearing the hill safely. Maybe Planica is still a little way off for them - it likely won't happen during Lindsey Van's or Anette Sagen's active career. But it will happen.


Correction: it was the TD who crossed the girls off the start list, not a jury decision. Lindsey Van (US), Jessica Jerome (US), Anette Sagen (NO) and Line Jahr (NO) were all due to jump that day.


Edited by Squawker - 8/11/2009 at 11:07 am GMT

Men's ski jumping has Olympic exposure and they aren't exactly sports super stars.

Wow. I agree with VA. This ain't exactly Darfur.

That's a very US perspective. Round these parts they're considered sports stars on a level with alpine skiers, though I guess jumping isn't as lucrative (do we only measure success in $$ ?) The Four Hills Tournament at new year probably has more viewers than the alpine World Cup, and the turn out of spectators in Austria and southern Germany is huge for these events.

You lot "over there" (I'm generalizing, ok?) might not know of Simon Amman, Janne Ahonen, Andi Goldberger, Matti Nykänen, Gregor Schlirenzauer, Bjørn Einar Romøren, Jens Weissflog, Adam Małsyz, Thomas Morgenstern, to name but a few.... but they're super stars in Scandinavia and Central Europe.

Oh, "Breasts Barred"!

I read that incorrectly........................

Now that would be an interesting event!

I actually agree with Squawker. To be honest, I'm too lazy to go and search data, but out of my memory, I would say Schmitt earned more in his best years then any alpine skier. So ski jumping is not really so obscure sport as someone might think.

I'm all for baring breasts at the Olympics...oh wait you said barr....that sucks......let's start a petition for baring not barring

Oh, it's only women, and who cares if they want to compete at all?   How silly to be all up in the air (no pun intended) about something so unimportant?  After all, women are not equal to men, and shouldn't be, and there are real world problems to tackle.  I'm sure we'll just shrug and go back to the kitchen, fix ya'll up a nice dinner and then knit you some socks.

It obviously doesn't bother some of the men here, but it makes me feel insignificant.  Men compete in figure skating.  What if that were considered too delicate for a man?  It's equally ludicrous.

This shouldn't be an issue.  If men can compete against each other, women should also be allowed to compete against each other in the same sport.  Perhaps more women will become involved in the sport, which is all good.  What is the harm in that?  

Doing my very small part, I signed the petition.  Thanks for posting.