Women ski jumpers fight for their right to compete in the Olympics

COMMENT:Canadian journalist Laura Robinson gives her personal account from within the court in Canada, where 15 female skiiers fight for their right to participate in the Olympics.

A historic Olympic competition took place at the end of April as fifteen female ski jumpers from Canada, Austria, Norway, Slovenia and the U.S. took on the Vancouver Organizing Committee of the 2010 Winter Olympics (VANOC) arguing they have a constitutional right— under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms--to compete next February at the Games. Ski jumping is the only sport where women are banned from participating, though entire countries ban women athletes from the Games— but that’s another story.    

The biggest Olympic event these women have had to endure is the blame game—VANOC says it is the IOC who are discriminating, the IOC say it is the international ski federation, the FSI say it is the IOC; round and round they go in an Old Boys relay race. At the end of the day, women are still shut out, despite the many attempts to try to change attitudes and minds. Rules are rules say the suits; be good girls and wait another four years when we let you into the tree fort.  

My first exposure to this sporting version of equality occurred when I was a bike racer in the 1970’s and learned that women cyclists were not allowed to compete at the Olympics. No reason was given, though if those of us who raced at that time questioned why this was so, we made it onto the sport’s blacklist. When we finally were allowed in 1984, those who had fought for this right remained on the list, unwelcome on national teams.   

Three women were allowed to compete in the road race, while countries could enter five men in the men’s race--a rule that exists to this day. At the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics countries were allowed to send up to eleven men, but only three women for the cycling track events, which may have been because there are seven events for men and in the twenty-four years since we gained entry, women are only allowed have three track events. Cycling is not alone. While women kayakers were allowed into the Olympics in 1948, there are only three events for them while there are nine for men. There are still no canoeing events for women at the Games.   

While covering summer Olympics last summer I asked IOC member Hein Verbruggen  why there were so few events for women cyclists. Verbruggen was, after all, President of the Evaluation Commission for the Beijing Games; he was ultimately responsible for what events took place. Verbruggen has been a member of the IOC since 1996 and was president of the Union Cycliste Internationale from 1991 to 2006.   

“I don’t know” said the man who controls the sport of cycling more than anyone else on the planet. As security guards pushed me away, I asked him if he couldn’t give the question a little more thought. “I guess it’s historical” he replied, at which time I lost the tug of war with security and off Verbruggen strode. When I went to his office it was fenced off and well guarded.  

In 1990 I tried to have a similar discussion with some of his IOC colleagues at the International Olympic Academy in Olympia, Greece. For the first time, the academy; founded by the IOC in 1961, had devoted its session to women in the Olympics. I was one of five women representing Canada, and sat down at the same table as the IOC members one day at lunch. One of these fine gentlemen told me in his country they beat women who spoke out of line. After lunch another reached in his pocket, pulled out a set of keys and yawned. “I am in cabin twenty-two” he told me, yawned again and jingled the keys in my face. Toronto was bidding for the 1996 Games. He must have thought I had been sent to persuade him.    

From world championship events in 1966 to just before the Sydney Games in 2000, women athletes had to wear a “femininity card” awarded only after they passed a test administered by the IOC. The first tests forced women to walk naked in front of a panel of doctors. Should these “experts” decide further proof was needed, they were allowed to do gynecological examinations. One of Canada’s track and field athletes likened it to rape. At the 1968 Olympics the tests changed to buccal saliva swaths that were to show the presence of only X chromosomes. They had a twenty per cent false positive rate. Women athletes were told to feign an injury and go home.  

Somehow the combination of strength and femaleness has not computed yet for the IOC. There must be a biological flaw in women athletes—a tiny penis lurking somewhere. Dr. Sandi Kirby, chair of the University of Winnipeg’s sociology department and a former Olympic rower, Dr. Berit Skirstad of the Norwegian University of Sport and Physical Education, and others lobbied for years to have these tests banned.   

The fight for equality in sport is never ending. Next year while Canada’s women hockey team tries to regain Olympic golden status, other women in this national passion are still fighting for their right to play. In 2006 in Vulcan, Alberta Chelsey Rhodes filed a complaint at the Alberta Human Rights Commission on behalf of her cousin Cori when she was disallowed from playing on the bantam boy’s team she had successfully made. This nearly twenty years after the Supreme Court of Canada upheld Justine Blainey’s right to play when the Ontario Hockey Association banned her from the all-boys team she made.   

Recently Vulcan’s hockey association agreed Cori could play, which is a little late considering she now attends the University of Lethbridge. Hockey Alberta is appealing. Someone there must be vying for a seat in the IOC.

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