On 2014-01-09 12:44 PM, Nancy Young wrote:
> On 1/9/2014 11:46 AM, Dave Smith wrote:
>
>> There has been a controversy over women's ski jumping. Women ski
>> jumpers have been pushing for years to be allowed to compete. They even
>> took it to court for the Vancouver, arguing that it violated the Charter
>> of Rights and Freedoms because it was discriminatory. The IOC's
>> argument against a women's event is that there just aren't enough women
>> ski jumpers to make it a true competition. If you only have a couple
>> women in each of a couple countries all they have to do to make it to
>> the Olympics is to show up, and then the odds are that they will win a
>> medal.
>
> I just saw a picture from 1967 where a woman dared to run in the
> Boston marathon and one of the organizer was attacking her as she
> was running. I don't know if he was trying to tear off her number
> or what. Imagine that, women weren't allowed to run in marathons.
> Women not allowed to run, therefore there weren't female marathoners.

Yep. He was trying to tear the number bib off her because it was, at
that time, a men only race. While she had sort of officially entered
she had done so on the sly, using only her initial and surname. She had
also donned a hooded sweatshirt to disguise her gender. I trust that you
noted that she was running with a small group of men, one of them being
her boyfriend, and he body bounced the guy right off the street, so she
did have some male support to be in the race.

Kathrine Switzer had been running with the men in the track club at her
university because there was no women's track club. Clubs like that
usually start up at schools when there are enough people interested in
the sport to start one. Back in those days there were very few women
runners.


>
> I bet there will be a lot more women ski jumping if they have a chance
> to go to the Olympics.
>



I don't know what it was that stopped women from ski jumping, except
maybe having more brains than men. Things can go really badly wrong in
that sport. There are all sorts of ski events for women, and there are
a lot of women skiers. Competition to get onto a national team is hot,
and even hotter to get onto the Olympic ski team. It is a different
matter with ski jumping. There just aren't enough of them doing it to
really make it a competition. Be one of a few dozen women ski jumpers in
the world, show up and you stand a good chance of winning a medal.


There are a probably a few other sports that fall into the same
category. I have lived in a northern climate all my life and I don't
know anyone who does bobsledding luge or skeleton. It seems that if you
luck into a place where you can do it and are crazy enough to try it you
are on the team.