BEGINNING April 20, 2009, the British Columbia Supreme Court will hear a case for the inclusion of women’s ski-jumping in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had turned down a request to add one women’s event to the Olympic programme.

 

For United States skier, Lindsey Van (pictured) the outcome of the trial will ultimately decide her future in the sport she has contested over the past 17 years.

 

Although the resident of Park City, Utah, resident is relatively young - she will celebrate her 24th birthday this week - she has found battling what she considers discrimination against her and her fellow competitors exhausting.

 

The skiers are arguing that the exclusion of women violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

 

If the judge’s decision goes against inclusion Van, who is among the world’s top three jumpers, will likely not be around four years hence to battle again.

 

She declares: “Probably not.

 

"No. I have so many other things I want to do.

 

"It’s not worth pursuing a thing that is taking up all my energy.

 

"I don’t find it’s beneficial going on beyond that when there is no sure end in sight at the 2014 Olympics.

 

"I don’t have any faith that if [inclusion] doesn’t happen now that it will happen in four more years.

 

"My time is up.

 

"I can’t do it as a hobby much longer, it’s too time consuming and too expensive.”

 

Shocked when IOC ignored FIS

 

Van was among roughly 140 women ski jumpers worldwide who were shocked when the IOC turned them down.

 

The announcement was made in November 2006.

 

The International Ski Federation (FIS) had voted 114-1 in favour of including women in the 2009  World Championships which are to held in Liberec, Czech Republic, in February.

 

The skiers were elated and felt that it was a natural progression for the IOC to allow them into the Vancouver Olympics.

 

But the IOC has ruled otherwise.

 

IOC President Jacques Rogge has said nothing to support his organisation’s position.

 

"If you have three medals, with 80 athletes competing on a regular basis, internationally, the percentage of medal winners is extremely high," Rogge told reporters recently.

 

"In any other sport, you are speaking about hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions of athletes, at a very high level, competing for one single medal.

 

"We do not want the medals to be diluted and watered down.

 

"That is the bottom line."

 

Former Mayor claims public misled

 

A group led by former Salt Lake City Mayor, Deedee Corradini, who is also the president of Women’s Ski Jumping USA, believes the IOC is misleading the public on this matter.

 

She argues that her sport has more elite competitors and more countries competing than other women’s winter sports currently on the programme such as skeleton, luge, bobsleigh and snowboarding cross.

 

Van has another theory.

 

“I think it’s because its a traditional male dominated extreme sport,” she opines, “and I think [Rogge] thinks that if you let women do extreme sports it will take away that extreme value a little bit.”

 

Corradini says the IOC is impregnable from a legal standpoint and so chose to sue the Vancouver Olympic Organising Committee rather than the IOC.

 

She believes that VANOC has the power to persuade the IOC.

 

Their position, that this is discrimination against women, has been supported by the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

 

The Vancouver law firm Davis LLP is working pro bono on the case.

 

Corradini doesn’t understand why the IOC has turned down FIS when the support was overwhelmingly in favour of inclusion.

 

“Its a puzzlement to us.” Corradini admits.

 

“All we can think is that once they have said no they aren’t going to change their minds.

 

That’s why we keep fighting.

 

"We see the injustice.

 

"The CHRC has already agreed this is discrimination and because nothing happened as a result of the filing of the CHRC we had no choice but to file a lawsuit.”

 

Vancouver can do it

 

The IOC media relations staff have not replied to requests by insidethegames for an interview on the matter.

 

Meanwhile, VANOC media relations staff are refusing comment.

 

They have distributed a prepared statement instead.

 

“This is a matter that is currently before the courts and understandably we can provide no new comment,” reads their statement.

 

“As we have stated in the past, in advance of the IOC's decision [December 2006] not to include women's ski jumping for 2010, we supported the inclusion of women's ski jumping and communicated to the IOC that if they elected to add the event at that time, we would and could support it from a logistical and operational standpoint. 

 

"We recognise that efforts are continuing by some to raise the profile and awareness of the issue, however, neither the facts nor our position have changed - it is not our decision to make.”

 

Van trains roughly 20 hours a week on the hill used for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. 

 

She considers herself a professional athlete thanks to sponsorship provided by VISA.

 

She also works part time at a physiotherapy clinic and takes classes at nearby University of Utah.

 

There have been sacrifices made to reach the level of world class, most notably, leaving her family for three years to train with her coach at the Lake Placid Olympic site when she was 13-years-old.

 

With the  CHRC, the Canadian Federal Government, VANOC and the FIS executive lining up in support of the women’s jump being included it is indeed baffling.

 

Should the IOC position remain unchanged it will indeed be ironic.

 

The longest jump ever recorded on the normal hill at Whistler, which will be used by the men during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, is 105.5m and is held by a woman.

 

Her name is Lindsey Van.

 

Paul Gains is a Canadian-based freelance writer whose work has appeared in Time, the New York Times, Toronto Star, GQ and  many other publications around the world. He covered the recent Beijing Olympics for CBC Television and was the athletics news editor for the 2004 Athens Olympic News Service. He will be appearing every week on insidethegames during the build-up to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver