Three Poles to Ski in The Men’s Games

Female Ski Jumpers Lose Final Bid to Compete
by Jeremy Hainsworth - Associated Press
Vancouver, British Columbia - 22 Dec 2009

Female ski jumpers are setting their sights on 2014 now that they have lost their final bid to compete at the Vancouver Olympics [next month]. The Supreme Court of Canada refused on Tuesday to hear an appeal of two lower-court rulings that said Canada's Charter of Rights cannot dictate which sports are included in the Winter Games. The women contend that Vancouver organizers are breaking the charter by hosting only men's ski jumping.

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The women first launched a lawsuit against local organizers in May 2008, 18 months after the IOC decided against the inclusion of women's ski jumping. They dropped a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission when the federal government agreed to lobby the IOC. When that failed, they pursued a court case.

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IOC president Jacques Rogge said earlier this month that the women had not met the standards for inclusion in 2010.

"We did not want the medals to be watered down by too little a pool of very good jumpers," he said. "There was not enough quality at the time."

Rogge said there are 164 registered women jumpers in the world, compared to more than 2,500 men. He said there are about 15 "technically very able" jumpers but the rest are not up to world standards.

Marked with a scarlet letter 'F' on their championship records, many of the world's most dynamic masters of the slopes apparently need three ski poles to meet the double standards of Jacques Rogge and his male supremacist brethren at the International Olympic Committee.

If a ski jumper is a mere woman, Rogge and his committee get a good laugh in full knowledge of how hard she had to compete despite Olympic™-sized obstacles they themselves devise. If the mere female athlete dares to be a champion of human rights and innovative techniques to rise above her male superiors in the sport's record books, then King Jock Rogge decrees she somehow has watered down the IOC's old poison keeping women at unfair disadvantage her own medals.

Too bad for the boys at the IOC if "technically very able" seems to fit like a favourite glove on U.S. ski jumper Lindsey Van. She was the first woman to earn a gold medal at the Nordic Ski World Championships last February in the Czech Republic, not because of Rogge's faint praise but simply due to decades-long refusal by the International Ski Federation to officially sanction and promote events for female athletes. Van proved that even when cheated out of the slightest fair chance, women are capable of matching and surpassing their male near-competitors: jumping farther than any other skiier to set humanity's new distance record of 105.5 meters on the 90 meter hill, she accomplished this feat at the Vancouver Olympic™ Games' venue in Whistler, British Columbia.

Hey Rogge, try crunching your own numbers and swallowing them. How else can a woman so weak threaten to turn your world asunder, except by being the 1-Bitch-Out-Of-15 to whup the collective spoiled ass of over 2,500 men?

One woman at a time can be picked off as a genetic anomaly, but surely all hell and penises would break loose in the magic moment when 99 bitches and a world of supporters protest and sue the IOC for refusing due recognition of the medals and records already in the athletes' hands. Consistently over the past 10 years, women such as Lindsey Van herself jumped 125 and more meters on the manly-sized, Olympic™-approved hill in Park City, Utah. Another American ski jumper, Jessica Jerome, flew 91 meters on the 90 meter hill in a trial run at the Nordic Combined jumping event in 2002. A year later, Austrian ski jumper Daniela Iraschko set a training flight record of 200 meters on the hill in Külm. Karla Keck's win of the world championship in 1999 was relegated to unofficial status only because she lacked a third ski pole to open the doors of full competition, from the Continental Cup and the Grand Prix to the Nordic Combined at the Olympic™ Games.

What if these top-flight athletes, then and now, were allowed to register and jump in officially sanctioned events, whether against other women or their male counterparts too?

Maybe the obvious conclusion is exactly what scares Rogge into sticking tightly to his cock-and-bull story. In an August 2009 reply (full text is linked on p.2) to the ski jumpers' plea for full inclusion in the Olympic™ Games, his bragging led to an inadvertent nick in the plastic veneer over his bigotry…

As you know, I admire your passion for your sport and your ability as athletes. This is underlined by the tenacious way in which you have campaigned for inclusion in the Vancouver Games. However, for a number of clear reasons, we confirm our decision that women's ski jumping will not be part of the Olympic [sic] programme in February 2010.

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[T]he IOC is working hard to reach gender parity in winter and summer Games.... the reason why we took the decision not to include women's ski jumping was made strictly on a technical basis and absolutely not on gender grounds and was part of a process employed across all sports in the programme.

Rogge's condescension and bigotry lurk behind his faint praise and false chivalry. Contrary to his attempt at misdirecting the ski jumpers and the general public, such "gender grounds" were acknowledged by the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympics (VANOC) when they responded to the April 2009 lawsuit filed against them by ski jumper Annette Sagen et al in the British Columbia Supreme Court:

Sagen v. Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010
Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, 2009 BCSC 942
court ruling by The Honourable Madam Justice L. A. Fenlon - 10 July 2009

[from item 75]   There is no dispute between the parties that the male ski jumpers form the appropriate comparator group; nor do they disagree that the plaintiffs are being treated less favourably and that this differential treatment is based on the enumerated ground of sex.

Even if the reasons were truly technical, numerous male-dominant Olympic™ events would fail to meet the moving targets imposed by Rogge upon women. For example, the men's two-seat bobsled event has been held in the Olympiads for almost a century. That race typically is run by as few as 30 male teams representing 15 nations; such numbers are hardly better than 36 female ski jumpers hailing from 13 countries. When compared to other women already participating in the winter Olympic™ games, female ski jumpers would be on solid footing: skier cross is run by 30 women from 11 nations, snowboard cross by 34 women from 10 countries, and the bobsled race by 26 women from 13 nations.

Rogge is misstating the figures for female skiiers anyway: actually 146 women are registered and start authorized (officially cleared) for ski jumping in events sanctioned by the International Ski Federation (FIS). A grand total of 206 female skiiers representing 16 or more countries are start authorized by the FSI; many fine athletes in this larger group might be able and willing to ski jump if women were given a fair chance at the Olympic™ Games.

To finally drive home the point, let's make a direct contrast of female and male ski jumpers. Despite claims by the IOC and VANOC of supposedly fair application of rules, male ski jumping repeatedly has fallen short of the ballyhooed "universality" requirements of participating athletes and countries. Yet it has been privileged with a special exemption through Rule 47(4.4) of the Olympic™ Charter.

Under this openly preferential coddling of males, does Olympic™-scale "differential treatment" amount to discriminatory maltreatment of highly-ranked female athletes? To find the answer in ethical if not purely legal terms, we'll indulge in a quick review of Olympic™ sports history, courtesy of Justice Fenlon, who deserves Honourable Mention for Clear and Concise Phraseology Most Becoming to an Officer of a Court of Law:

Sagen v. Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010
Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, 2009 BCSC 942
again from Justice L. A. Fenlon's court ruling, 10 July 2009

[84]   In the case before me, men's ski jumping has been included in the Olympic Programme for the 2010 Games because it was, in effect, grandfathered. In 1949, the IOC adopted a rule to slow the rapid growth of the number of Olympic events within recognized sports. Rule 47 of the Olympic Charter was a successor to that rule. It allowed events which historically have been part of the Olympics, such as men's ski jumping, to continue as Olympic events, even if they did not meet the criteria for inclusion of new events. Rule 47(4.4) provided:

47(4.4)  Sports, disciplines or events included in the programme of the Olympic Games which no longer satisfy the criteria of this rule may nevertheless, in certain exceptional cases, be maintained therein by decision of the IOC for the sake of the Olympic tradition. [emphasis added]

[85]   Walter Sieber, who is a VANOC Board member, the COC vice-president and a member of the Olympic Committee's Olympic Games Programme Commission, deposed that the IOC refused to add women's ski jumping to the 2010 Games because "the level of competition had not yet developed sufficiently to be included in the Games". The IOC was of the view that women's ski jumping lacked the universality required under Rule 47(3.3).

[86]   However, men's ski jumping also lacks the universality required under Rule 47(3.3), yet it remains an Olympic event because it falls into the "Olympic tradition" exception under Rule 47(4.4). While the Olympic Charter provides that the IOC can review existing events, there is no evidence that the men's ski jumping events were subjected to such a review.

[87]   Currently, the International Ski Federation ("FIS") has registrations for male ski jumpers from 29 countries for all three events combined. That represents 58% of the required universality under Rule 47(3.3). The FIS has registrations for female ski jumpers in 18 countries. That represents 52% of the required universality. Thus, both men's and women's ski jumping fall short of the required universality by approximately the same degree.

[88]   The comparison to men's ski jumping on the large hill (the 120-metre jump) and women's on the normal hill (the 90-metre jump) is also illustrative. Since 2004, 12 nations medaled in 127 events held for men and 9 nations medaled in 91 events held for women.

[89]   In 1949, when the Olympic tradition exception was created, the number of men's events far exceeded the number of women's events. This was the result of historic widely-held beliefs about the participation of women in competitive sport. As late as 1954, the IOC voted to limit women's participation to those events "particularly appropriate to the female sex": Martin. Sports Canada, a department of the Federal Ministry of Heritage, created a "Policy on Women in Sport" in 1986 to address the issue of exclusion of women from sport. It stated that "history has demonstrated that opportunities for women to develop either participants or leaders at any level in the sport system have been significantly fewer than those made available for men."

[90]   The Olympic tradition exception under Rule 47(4.4) of the Olympic Charter gives an advantage to the comparator group that the plaintiffs do not enjoy; because men's ski jumping events have historically been part of the Olympic Programme, the IOC did not subject men's ski jumping events to their inclusion criteria. The women do not have the advantage of the Olympic tradition exception because historical stereotyping and prejudice prevented women from participating in ski jumping in sufficient numbers by 1949 to be included in the Olympics. Rule 47(4.4) perpetuates the effect of that prejudice and is, therefore, discriminatory.

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[103]   In summary on this issue, I am satisfied that the differential treatment of the plaintiffs resulting from the application of the Olympic Charter Rules that grandfather men's ski jumping, while requiring women's ski jumping events to meet the criteria for the inclusion of new events, discriminates against the plaintiffs in a substantive sense.

Then why did the judge cite a jurisdictional issue to decide in favour of VANOC over the plaintiffs and indirectly for the IOC? She was plumb out of options. The court's normal geopolitical authority already had been abrogated back in 2003, when Vancouver agreed to the IOC's 61-page host city contract. That pact with the devil effectively nullifies the entire Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by putting the city under the Olympic Charter and "the supreme authority of" the transnational IOC. It also trapped Justice Fenlon into ruling VANOC is subject to Canadian legal jurisdiction while the IOC deem themselves beyond reach of any nation's laws except perhaps Switzerland's. Though guilty as sin for blatant gender-based discrimination against female athletes, the IOC cannot be held in violation of s.15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because no Canadian law, no other nation's laws, can be applied to the Swiss-based organisation, to their Olympic Charter, or even to public activities and events in the city of Vancouver!

Yup, it's hardly a victory for the sake of world peace and international co-operation. It's a legal loophole and immoral mess.

Now we have our answer and it's hardly a surprise: "universality" really means male is the default and the "Olympic tradition" clause literally is grandfathering more male-only preferences and exceptions. Female athletes have no such privilege of a "grandmother" clause, or perhaps a granddaughter rule would be more apropos.

No worries, responds King Jock Rogge! He and his men are workin' hard on dat dere whatchamacallit, on lettin' a few girls, lookin' hot and not too uppity, wiggle into some short shorts and prance 'round the boxing ring. Didn't he remind the ski jumpers about 36 women being added to boxing events in the 2012 London Olympic™ Games? Yup, boxing now includes 3 weight categories for women. Of course 10 weight classes are reserved for men.

A Sarky Interlude to "Three Poles to Ski"

Oh we shall be ever grateful, Sir! Our mothers thank you, our sisters thank you, our daughters thank you, Sir, for granting us a cute little room of our own to play in. We shall nevermore demand the least trouble or slightest sacrifice from you and all the gentlemen.

Does the IOC's perpetual dual state of being Ethically & Mathematically Challenged help to explain why both the cause and solution of their gender parity problem remain elusive for them?

Although systemic bigotry against female athletes obviously precedes Rogge's term as IOC president, he perversely has undone some of the best work of his immediate predecessor Juan Antonio Samaranch. Rogge's methods can be determined easily enough by counting heads at his international All Boys Club:

The Olympics, an All Boys Club?
by Laura Robinson - 30 April 2009

Just because the IOC is comprised mainly of aging men… and just because 61.7% of athletes competing at the 2006 Turin Olympics were male, doesn't mean they aren't looking out for women.

Why in 1997, the IOC established a minimum target of 20% female membership for National Olympic Committees so women would get into decision-making positions in various countries. Eleven years later, only 30% of the NOC's had met the target, but it's a start, right? Maybe by the end of this century.

The IOC's "Women In The Olympic Movement" Fact Sheet (see on-site link on p.2) admits to a mere 16 women— parenthetically adding "(i.e. more than 14%)" as if the measly percentage were worthy of pride rather than embarrassment— among the 107 members. The IOC publication goes on to boast of one lone token among 15 Executive Board members; Flor Isava Fonseca is still the only woman there since her election twenty years ago!

Among the IOC's 20 permanent commissions, a woman is the chair of just one; its eponymous focus is a cinch to guess, as is its true underlying purpose. The Commission on Women and Sport, chaired by Anita DeFrantz, is little different from the "Ministry of Women's Affairs" trick used by dictatorships worldwide: from Iran to the IOC, such gender segregation is mighty handy for relegating a human rights champion and her constituents to a political void.

The hypocrisy hasn't eluded Laura Robinson. Pointing out the Commission meets just once a year, she says its members include a Jordanian prince, an Indian raja, two male generals from Egypt and Cote d'Ivoire, plus three princesses and a queen holding up the rear.

According to Robinson's last count, fourteen men and two token women comprise yet another bad joke at the IOC: the Olympic™ Games Programme Commission is headed by none other than VANOC member Walter Sieber, whose words and votes are but empty echoes of Rogge's twisted logic.

Old reliable "Women Can Set Ski Jump Records But We Can't Let Those Officially Count" Walter insists he and his commissioners are "impartial experts who make recommendations based on objective standards"; the very notion of forcing men to share their ski jump facilities with the likes of Lindsey Van threatened to "dilute the universality of the Olympics" i.e. the supremacism of males.

Robinson rightly continues to ask questions deserving straight answers:

The Olympics, an All Boys Club?
by Laura Robinson - 30 April 2009

If the IOC cares so much about the equality of women, why are there still no canoeing events for women at the Games? Why seven cycling track events for men and three for women? Why force female beach volleyballers players to limit their bikini bottoms to a maximum of 7 centimetres at the hip? Beach volleyball has a "control committee" that [female] athletes must get permission from to even put on a sweatshirt during competition.

As I mentioned above, inequities in boxing events at the London Olympic™ Games in 2012 are hardly a deviation from the familiar pattern; the 2008 Summer Olympic™ Games held in Beijing, China were no different. Each nation's male cycling team was allowed up to 11 members, but a limit of 3 mere cyclists was imposed upon the women's team. Over in the water sports arena, kayaking included 3 events for women but a grand total of 9 for their male counterparts.

By some estimates, approximately 165 Olympic™ events are open to males whereas female athletes are restricted to 125. The IOC's Fact Sheet claims women participated in 137 out of 302 events, or 45%, at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. If we dare to compare the exact number and type of events, allotments per team, access to facilities, and positions of power within the IOC along with their host city partners, media allies, and corporate sponsors, we can find the truth about the games they play. Gender imbalance is written into the Olympic Charter. The rules and related decisions are made by and for men.

Male privilege is really nothing special in the unsportsmanlike world of Olympic™ games. When was the last time you caught news of male players manning up to take a stand on principle, in either word or action, to end the bigotry against their female peers? (Yeah, you hear only the sound of crickets in the summer, of snowflakes in the winter.) An organized virile protest by teams and their coaches would unnerve corporate sponsors, and a boycott by the top ranks could be potent enough to open the doors to real competition. The greater irony is such political action itself probably scares men less than suffering the consequences of success.

Fear and aversion of women in general, denigration and disruption of women's athletic achievements in particular, remain endemic from top to bottom— among male teams and coaches, throughout the IOC, in participating governments and corporations. Sportswomen worldwide have made immeasurable contributions to ski jumping and other events while also having to vault over political and financial man-made barriers; only raw bigotry on the basis of gender can explain why the IOC and their partners refuse to grant rewards and recognition commensurate with the athletes' championship level performance.

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