Just ahead of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games, a group of female ski jumpers will be in a British Columbia (B.C.) court in November to appeal a ruling that failed to overturn the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision to exclude them from the 2010 Winter Games.
The case will be heard in the B.C. Court of Appeal November 12 and 13, just three months before the Games officially begin February 12.
A B.C. Supreme Court Justice ruled last month that the IOC is discriminating against women ski jumpers by keeping them out of the Games, but Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said the court lacks the power to order the IOC to include the sport in the Vancouver Games.
The Canadian Press reports the women were in court in April to argue that their exclusion from the Games violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They wanted the court to rule that VANOC must either add women’s ski jumping to the Games or cancel all the ski jumping events.
John Furlong, Vancouver 2010’s chief executive officer, said organizers would abide by a court’s ruling. He said last week, “if the decision somehow changed from the one we are now dealing with, and we were instructed by the IOC to stage an event, then, as we’ve always said…we would move heaven and earth to make it happen. That’s the best I can offer you at this moment. We are not planning that event today”.
In her decision Justice Fenlon said the IOC, not VANOC, decides which sports will be included in the Games. She wrote, “the international committee is not governed by Canada’s Charter, nor does the organization fall under her court’s jurisdiction”.
The judge also said that although VANOC does fall under the Charter, “not every act of discrimination is a breach of the Charter”.
The IOC voted in 2006 to exclude women’s ski jumping from the 2010 Games because, “with too few athletes competing in this event, and no world championships until one year before the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, women’s ski jumping does not reach the necessary technical criteria and as such does not yet warrant a place alongside other Olympic events”, IOC media relations manager Emmanuelle Moreau said in November 2008.
