Women ski jumpers suing for 2010 Olympic spot
A group of women ski jumpers are going to court in an attempt to have their sport included in the 2010 Winter Olympics.
A statement of claim will be filed in B.C. Supreme Court on Wednesday against the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee, Deedee Corradini of the lobbying group Women's Ski Jumping USA told the Canadian Press.
The jumpers are frustrated the International Olympic Committee did not include women's ski jumping on the program for the 2010 Games.
"It will be filed by some of the top women ski jumpers in the world," Corradini, who was mayor of Salt Lake City when it won the right to host the 2002 Winter Games, said in a telephone interview.
Corradini's group is not a plaintiff in the case.
At issue is whether women ski jumpers are being discriminated against by being barred from competing at the Games.
Officials with the Vancouver organizing committee declined comment.
The IOC has said its decision to exclude women's ski jumping at the Vancouver Games is based on "technical merit" and isn't discriminatory.
The IOC voted in 2006 not to allow women's ski jumping into the 2010 Games, saying the sport has not developed enough and that it didn't meet basic criteria for inclusion.
In order to be considered for inclusion in an Olympic Games, a sport must have held at least two world championships. The first women's ski jumping world championships will be held next year in Liberec, Czech Republic.
The Olympic charter also won't allow new sports to be added within four years of a Games.
Earlier this year Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, said because there are so few women ski jumpers in the world, including them in the Games would dilute the medals being handed out to other athletes.
Supporters of women's ski jumpers argue there are 135 women ski jumpers in 16 countries. This compares with other sports already in the Games including snowboard cross, which has 34 women from 10 countries, skier cross, which has 30 women from 11 nations, and bobsled, which has 26 women from 13 nations.
They also say the women's marathon was added to the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles after a single world championship in 1983.