Why don't they have women's ski jumping?

[hopein08]

I keep seeing that commercial during the Olympics and though I can't remember what it is for...I keep wondering why there isn't women's ski jumping.

Aren't there any women who want to do it?

I'm a woman (who, by the way, would NOT do ski jumping because I'm afraid of heights) and I was wondering.

[KamaAina]

1. Same reason there's no body checking in women's hockey

rampant sexism.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/16/SPG7BH9JU61.DTL

In the Olympic Games, evolving women's sports usually run into two obstacles: the talent gap and the fear factor. In hockey, body-checking is forbidden, partly because the two North American teams are so much faster and stronger, they might knock an opponent into the rafters.

Mostly, though, it's because some of the men who run Olympic sports are too squeamish. They no longer believe that a woman will be rendered barren if she runs 200 meters, or if they do, they don't say so out loud. But when it comes to blood and guts and eviscerated cartilage, they cling to double standards.

John Franco Kasper of the International Ski Federation has argued against adding women to the ski-jumping events by telling National Public Radio: "Don't forget, it's like jumping down from, let's say, about 2 meters on the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."

Eurghh. How'd the Bush** "adminstration" let this guy get away? :sarcasm:

edit: italics

[hopein08]

17. Wow...that is absolutely awful...

I remember a girl in my high school gym class (and this was around 1998 or so) telling me that someone told her that we shouldn't have had to run 10-20 per gym class because that much running around aym could tilt the uterus and make girls infertile. Could have been that guy...

But this Kasper guy should definitely hook up with the "administration."

Thanks for the link.

[fleabert]

19. LOL! does he think our uterus will fall out if we jump?

pathetic.

[Pacifist Patriot]

2. I have always wondered that.

Must be an incredible sensation flying through the air like that. I'd break my neck but that doesn't mean other women wouldn't kick ass doing it.

[gizmo1979]

5. I always wondered how they practiced?

You have to be bad at it in the beginning.You can't just put skis on and go you'd kill yourself.So how do they get to that point?

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. Ha! I was wondering that about the luge the other day.

Gee, I think I'll strap myself to this little sled and see if I can survive hurtling down a manufactured slope at speeds exceeding posted highway limits.

[hopein08]

20. I was wondering how luge was invented just the other day...

I looked it up and the gist of what I found was that is was invented in logging communities is the Alps. The couple pages I looked at seemed short on details, so I was left wondering...

Did people ride the logs down the flumes and eventually drop the logs and just ride whatever the logs were on down the flumes?

Alcohol must have helped in the invention of the sport, right?

And who on Earth would come up with doubles luge? Better yet, why?

Anyway, did you see that the singles lugers don't strap themselves in, they just wear 35 pounds of weights around their midsections and butts?

[Pacifist Patriot]

25. And people think extreme sports are a new thing.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. Yeah It Would Be Really Cool, But I'd Never Actually Do It

Parasailing is the closest i came to something like that, and the chute is already open!
The Professor

[ScreamingMeemie]

3. Because they would score better than men although the IOC will

tell you it's for "health issues". The women who want to jump will jump anyway...so let them.

[Xithras]

4. There aren't enough jumpers.

IIRC, there was a news article about this just a couple of weeks ago. Basically, before something can become an olympic sport there needs to already be organized national and international competitions for it. There aren't enough female ski jumpers in the world to put something like that together, and the few that do exist come from just a couple of countries. The IOC has already said that it would add the sport as soon as it becomes competetive.

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Not true. It's very competitive with over 50 world class jumpers

worldwide.

snip-

International Ski Federation (FIS) president and IOC poo-bah Gian Franco Kasper's inane, illogical, and irrelevant opinion about this sport being too hard on girls "for medical reasons" shows exactly what women are up against in trying to gain Olympic status in ski jumping. It's clear that the only thing they need to be protected against is this kind of archaic thinking. Could it be that Kasper is trying to protect the sport from the girls?

-snip

http://www.skijumpingcentral.com/

The IOC continually turns them down for medical reasons and not interest. Another interesting point is that many times women out jump men on the same jumps.

[Xithras]

10. Interesting, the article the other day claimed less than a dozen.

I wish I could find that article, but it said there were only about 125 registered female jumpers in the world, and only about a dozen are good enough for world class competition.

I do agree that women and men shouldn't compete head to head. In ski jumping, skinny and light people can achieve more airtime than those heavier than them. Because many women tend to be physically smaller than men, it would give them an advantage. Like many sports, there should be a womens league AND a mens league.

[Rabrrrrrr]

8. Because woman don't have the strength or the body to do sports.

God made them suited for kitchens and raising babies, and made men suited for manual labor and sports.

Geez.

:P

[Dolomite]

9. Just watch the men's events, then just imagine them not going as far/fast.

They no longer believe that a woman will be rendered barren if she runs 200 meters, or if they do, they don't say so out loud. But when it comes to blood and guts and eviscerated cartilage, they cling to double standards.

Hey, what's it called when someone casts a judgment based on gender?

I, being a non-gyno-american, have no double standard.

Women's Hockey is ref'ed by women isn't it? Why don't they take this "no checking" bullshit and toss it out the window? What's the Olympics going to do? Kick out every women's team? Not fucking likely.

[alarimer]

11. The real reason, I suspect, is that they go farther than the men

I mean their jumps are longer from the same height. I guess because they tend to weigh less ?? I don't know but I guess they don't want them showing up the men.

[eyepaddle]

13. Actually the lower weight would probably work against

women ski jumpers.

They might jump farther than men (I persoanlly have zero data either way) but greater mass helps punch through the air resistance, which is important coming down the ramp for acceleration.

As far as the sailing portion of the aerodynamics--I have no idea--I could see it going boh ways.

Regardless, if there are enough competitors and enough interest, the event should be included.

As a sidebar; some events are excluded to keep the overall size of the games down--a recent victim of this policy freestyle kayak and canoe (think of that as the equivalent of snowboarding in a kayak). I think that is more of a concern in the summer games though.

[alarimer]

22. Well you may be right about that explanation

I was really just repeating what I heard. I guess it was someone interviewed on TV. I am cynical enough to believe they don't want to see women jumping farther than men though. Whether they actually do or not, I have no idea.

[eyepaddle]

24. Y'know, this made me curious--it turns out it is really tough to

find ski jumping results via Google!

On the plus side it looks like there will be Women's ski jumping in 2010! :thumbsup:

(As far as the weight thing, Mythbusters did a thing on how a regular football would go farther than a helium filled football. And I've been hearing the commentators talk about heavier skiers having an advantage in downhill)

[underpants]

12. NBC or ABC had a report on American women not allowed to compete

one of them has a brother on the team.

The IOC's official statement was that it was not good for women to land over and over again from 2 or 3 meters.

[liontamer]

14. The men in charge don't want it to exist

so it doesn't. They don't want to devote funds to something in which they have no interest, and they don't have to, so they don't.

[Karenina]

16. Ski jumping is my fantasy...

Along with triple Salchows (I mastered a single and a Throw Waltz).
The lightweight girls would put the men to shame in no time. Can't have THAT!

[ZombieNixon]

18. Because there's a clock on the stove!!

Oh, wait...:hide:

That was :sarcasm:, BTW. I don't have a stove. :P

[mykpart]

21. I never realized it wasn't an Olympic event.

Women ski jump competitively in other contests, don't they? Isn't that how Jill Kinmont was injured?

[u4ic]

23. Corsets create wind resistance n/t