Imagine a world champion prohibited from competing in the Olympic Games.

Not because of drugs or scandal. Just because she is a woman.

Women’s ski jumping is the only event in the Olympic Winter Games that does not allow women to compete just like the men.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) orchestrates the largest, and arguably most important, sporting event in the world. This group will not allow women ski jumpers from 18 nations to participate in Vancouver in 2010.

Those who control the sport in Europe have said “ski jumping is bad for women’s bodies from a medical point of view.” This ridiculous statement has been uttered before. We saw it in the 1980s when women fought to be included in the marathon event in the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games.

The top women ski jumpers in the United States, Germany, Austria, Norway, and Canada filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee and the IOC arguing they should be allowed to jump in Vancouver. The Supreme Court of British Columbia is hearing the case on April 20, 2009. The judge has up to two months to make a decision.

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