Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Female jumpers: Whatcha talkin' about, Rogge?

Well they put it much more politely, of course. But here is the letter by female ski jumpers basically asking for explicit answers as to why they have been excluded from the forthcoming winter Olympics.
In addition to citing the human rights laws of Canada--the ground they attempted to stand on in a recent lawsuit--they also cite the IOC's statement that the sport had not met the technical merit criteria. They are asking what constitutes technical merit, citing a journalist's earlier assessment of the lack of technical merit--under IOC standards--of women's pole vaulting as compared to ski jumping.
Given the clearly subjective nature of technical merit, I am not guessing the women, and the rest of us who support their cause, are going to be getting any satisfactory answers any time soon.

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