8/14/2019 December Letter to IOC

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Editors: The following is an open letter to Dr. Jacques Rogge, President of the IOC, from thewomen ski jumpers in response to recent public remarks Dr. Rogge made about womens skijumping at a press conference.

December 15, 2009Dr. Jacques Rogge, PresidentInternational Olympic Committee

Chateau de VidyCase postale 3561001 Lausanne, SuisseVIA FACSIMILE +41 21 621 6350 and email

Dear Dr. Rogge:

We were very dismayed by the way you elected to answer a question about womens skijumping asked of you last week at a press conference on December 10 in Lausanne. You

compared women ski jumpers to their male counterparts both as athletes in terms ofperformance and as individual events within the sport of ski jumping.

As you are well aware, men and women athletes do not compete against one another. Theycompete within their gender men against men and women against women. Would you

compare Usain Bolt to Florence Griffith-Joyner? Catriona Le May-Doan to Sven Kramer?Lindsey Vonn to Bode Miller? Olympic gold medalist for womens hockey Hayley Wickenheiseris never compared to male hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. These athletes are all admired andrespected for their achievements against same-gender competitors.

You pointed out there are so few women ski jumpers active at the world championship leveland you compared that disparagingly to thousands of male ski jumpers. You neglected tomention that those male ski jumpers have participated in the Olympics since 1924,guaranteeing those men funding from their governments, their sports federations and supportfrom trainers, coaches and sponsors, not to mention a fan base that has increased awarenessof ski jumping as a sports opportunity for men. Womens ski jumping, as a sport, has neverhad the same level of support and as a consequence has not been able to develop at thesame rate as mens ski jumping. Even in 1991, when the IOC agreed to allow for the inclusionof both mens and womens events in all new sports at the Olympic Games, womens ski

jumping was puzzlingly left off the list. Isnt it also significant that in 2006 FIS recommendedour inclusion in the Olympics by a 114-1 vote? It is far more reasonable to compare us to thenumbers of women in facility-based winter sports like bobsleigh, skeleton, luge, skier crossand snowboard cross. In 2006, when you denied our inclusion for the 2010 Vancouver Games,83 women from 14 nations competed at the elite level in ski jumping, according to our sportsfederation FIS. Hundreds more competed in their own countries at the national and clublevels.

By comparison, at the time of their inclusion, only 34 women from 10 nations competed at theelite level in snowboard cross and 30 women from 11 nations in ski cross. You added womenssnowboard cross to the Olympics for 2006 and skier cross for 2010. Shouldnt the sameconcern you expressed for dilution of medals apply to these sports? If you compare thenumbers of women and countries competing at the elite level in luge, bobsleigh and skeletonduring the 2006/2007 season, when we were denied entry, ski jumping had more women and

countries at the elite level than those sports as well.

Its time to admit there is no reasonable excuse for excluding womens ski jumping from the

Olympics. This has been found to be discriminatory under the laws of Canada and we areseeking leave to argue our case at the Supreme Court of Canada.Against tremendous opposition and well-documented discrimination, we have still achievedamazing results for our sport. We love what we do, we know we do it well and we know thereare enough of us to stage an exciting and competitive event in Vancouver 2010.

Sincerely,

8/14/2019 December Letter to IOC

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Anette Sagen, Norway, Ulrike Graessler, Germany, Jenna Mohr, Germany, Monica Planic,Slovenia, LindseyVan, USA, Jessica Jerome, USA, Karla Keck, USA, Katie Willis, Canada, Canada, Meaghan Reid,Canada, ZoyaLynch, Canada, Jade Edwards, Canada, Nata de Leeuw, Canada, Charlotte Mitchell, Canada