There’s only one sport in the Winter Olympics that’s not open to women: ski jumping. The IOC has various reasons for keeping it out, none of them very good. They’ve cited the lack of participants (though skeleton has fewer), the lack of a range of countries (though Jamaica famously fielded a bobsledding team) and others.

Canadian women ski jumpers decided to take it to court claiming discrimination in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which specifies that (emphasis mine):

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex,…

The Vancouver Sun covers it:

Women ski jumpers lose Olympic fight in B.C. Supreme Court
BY DAPHNE BRAMHAM, VANCOUVER SUNJULY 10, 2009COMMENTS (35)
 
The B.C. Supreme Court has rejected an application from 15 female ski jumpers asking that either they be allowed to compete at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver or that all ski jumping events be cancelled.

The article summarizes the Justice’s findings:

Although Fenlon said that Vanoc is a government entity since it is carrying out government policy in staging the Games and is using significant government funds to build venues and support the Games, she said Vanoc and the governments have no control over designating “Olympic events”

That, she said, solely a decision for the International Olympic Committee.

“I acknowledge that there is something distasteful about a Canadian governmental activity subject to the Charter being delivered in a way that puts into effect a discriminatory decision made by others,” she wrote.

Part of that doesn’t make sense to me. VANOC very clearly operates as a form of subsidiary of the IOC. The contracts that are in place that define it otherwise are little more than a facade. Subsidiaries of multi-national companies operating in Canada are subject to the Charter, and yet the IOC is not. It kind of makes me scratch my head.

Posted by skooter at 3:36 PM This entry is filed under Sports.
This entry is tagged: 2010, Olympics, Vancouver Olympics