FLYING HIGH
Women land a first in ski jumping
If only the “large hill” hadn’t been there, right smack beside the so-called “normal hill” — glowing even more magnificently, as forbidden fruit is wont to do — under the lights at the RusSki Gorki Centre here.
The large hill is for, well, the men, who have been jumping off it only for 90 years, or since the first Winter Olympics.
The normal hill is for the women, who have been jumping off it since, oh, Tuesday.
“Let’s make some noise for those brave women!” the announcer urged the big crowd before the Olympic debut of women’s ski jumping on the smaller hill. “Are you ready for history?” Probably, he meant well. Certainly, the athletes are courageous, as is anyone who hurls herself on skis off a hill, whether the normal at 106 metres or the large at 140. But bets are with the men, the athletes aren’t praised the same way, generically, before they even jump.
The women who fought unsuccessfully to get ski jumping into the Vancouver Olympics four years ago — their lawsuit failed in the British Columbia courts, the judge finding that the rules were indeed discriminatory but that her hands were tied because the Canadian Charter couldn’t be bent to apply to the Vancouver organizing committee — have the next battle in the war staked out, and it’s to get on that big sucker.
About half of the women who were part of the lawsuit have either left the sport or lost ground to newer, younger stars.
Lindsey Van of Detroit, for instance, was the teenage public face of the court action, but when she skied here, she was a woman of 29, and had to struggle just to make the U.S. team.
In a field of 30, where half the athletes were teenagers, she finished 15th.
But the young ones are determined to carry the fight their predecessors started.
“I definitely think we could get a mixed team event, and within the four years (before the next Winter Games) if we start getting more and more large-hill competitions that it will get added as well,” Canada’s Atsuko Tanaka said afterwards.
The 21-year-old from Calgary finished a respectable 12th, just ahead of 18-year-old Taylor Heinrich, also of Calgary.
The battle of the Sara(h)s — between Japan’s 17-year-old phenom Sara Takanashi and American Sarah Hendrickson, who tore a knee to bits in August last year — never materialized.
Instead, Germany’s Carina Vogt, Austrian Daniela Iraschko- Stolz and Coline Mattel of France becoming the sport’s first Olympic 1-2-3 medallists.
Takanashi finished fourth, Hendrickson in 21st spot.
“Doing just one event and then leaving isn’t very fun,” Tanaka said.
Though there are no formal plans on the part of either the sport’s governing body, the International Ski Federation, or the International Olympic Committee to add the large hill for the women in 2018, the women themselves are already talking about it.
They already train on the large hill, and have even been allowed a few FIS World Cup competitions, once in Oslo last season, with a whopping two scheduled this year, another in Oslo and a second in Slovenia. They also competed in an off-season mixed team event on a big hill.
As Tanaka put it in her matterof-fact manner: “It’s definitely something we’re capable of doing, especially if they’re only sending the top 30 women of the world, then I think its definitely possible for us to have a competition on it (the large hill) too.
“…We’d like to have more events, but it’s all up to the IOC,” she said.
“We’d definitely fight for it I think, as we fought for this spot.”
Gender parity at the Olympics is not the near-thing officials like to describe.
Irini Gladkih, the Sochi sports director, said at a recent news briefing that the Games here are “probably the most equal in terms of gender, men and women. Slightly less than half of all athletes are women, and we increased the number of women just because we added some ski jump events.”
But, in fact, as Postmedia’s Bev Wake discovered when she looked at the numbers, the only sport with true gender parity is curling, while figure skating is close.
According to Games statistics, there are 1,712 men competing here, and only 1,155 women. At best, that’s equal-ish.
For the lucky 30 here, it was nonetheless a wonderful moment.
“It was definitely cool.” Tanaka said. “It was weird, I didn’t feel as nervous as (she does at) a World Cup.
“I was just really having fun up there with all the girls. We were high-fiving each other and wishing each other good luck. It was a great atmosphere to be jumping in.”
If only there wasn’t that big sucker of a hill just beside the normal hill. It made Tanaka feel condescended to, she said, as though she were being patronized, as indeed she was. “Definitely,” she said./ Gian-Franco Kasper, the FIS boss, once worried aloud that ski jumping might not be “appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.” That’s the real mountain facing Atsuko Tanaka and the women who were highfiving on top of the normal hill.