Revolutionaries: Women's ski jumping

“Revolutionaries” is a feature focusing on women's progress into sports that are usually considered "male". 

Do you know what ski jumping is? If you don't: It's a sport where skiers "go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below" according to Wikipedia.  It looks like this:

It's a winter sport. Personally I don't find it terribly exciting. But let's ask ourselves a question. Do women do this? It is what I wondered watching the coverage of some events during my winter break. Ski jumping is regularly featured in German media during the winter and much thought is given to the state of the men's team, their chances to win medals, etc. I never heard of women's ski jumping in my life.

But as it turns out, it exists. Today there is a women's FIS (International Ski federation) World Cup, which is the season-long competition featuring multiple events, though much less then for the men. Women also participate in the yearly Nordic World Championships since 2009 and there are a mixed team competitions since 2012. In 2014, it will be an Olympic sport. While there are still rather few women practicing the sport - only natural, since training athletes begins at a young age and the sport is only just developing - and the media coverage is, at least from my own experience, sparse (though it is televised sometimes), this is quite an achievement. 

But it was not an easy path. Women first pushed for the sport to become Olympic in 2006, vying for the Winter Games in Toronto 2010, but the IOC denied their plea, based on the fact that the sport wasn't established enough. Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC stated that: "we do not want the medals to be diluted and watered down". The discussion about the sport is rife with sexist sterotypes and statements, including the idea that this sport is simply to dangerous and not fir for women (you'll see more in the video below)

Fifteen competitive female ski jumpers filed a suit against this, considering the decision discriminatory, but they were denied, since their suit was based on Canadian law which didn't apply to the IOC. There is, apparently, a documentary based on their struggles, called "Fighting Gravity". I haven't checked it out yet, but it looks very interesting. Here's the trailer:

Ski jumping is a sport that takes guts and courage. It can be very dangerous - there are some awful falls. These women who give their all and take that jump are tremendous athletes who devote their life to this sport. They have every right to be part of the Olypics and all other official competitions.

Thankfully, in 2011, the IOC saw the light and allowed women's ski jumping for the next Olympic games, meaning that there are no longer any sports solely practiced by men at the Winter Olympics!!!

Obviously, this sport is still developing and most of its emerging stars are quite young, like 16-year old Sara Takanashi, the Japanese World Cup leader, or 18-year-old Sara Hendrikson, the newly crowned World Campion from the United States. Overall 53 women have gained Wolrd Cup points this season. The US seem to have a slight advantage at the moment - a strong women's movement in sports has pushed women's ski jumping comparatively early while the men are traditionally not very successful in international competition. But investing in women's ski jumping can be interesting for all federations, also considering the mixed events. While at the top of the men's competition, the margins are tight and talent is abundant, there are few female top athletes right now and they can make the crucial difference between a gold and a silver medal.

Sara Takanashi

It's one of the reasons I like mixed competitions so much. Men's and women's results count equally and national federations are forced to invest in both if they want to succeed. So let's hope that they present a chance for women's ski jumping and allow it to develop into a strong, competitive sport during the next decade. It certainly has a lot of amazing women fighting for it.

If you want to learn more: http://www.fisskijumping.com/ - the FIS official website with quite a lot of information on women too. 

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118002265/?categoryid=13&cs=1 about the inception of "Fighting Gravity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_jumping#Women.27s_ski_jumping English Wikipedia is unfortunately rather brief on the subject - the German article is much better...