15 plaintiffs lost their lawsuit against the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee when the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled that the decision to exclude their sport is out of the organizing committee’s control.

From the Salt Lake City Tribune:

… “No one wanted to go to court over this, but we had no choice,” Deedee Corradini, president of Women’s Ski Jumping-USA, said in a statement. “It’s terribly disappointing, but the experience and effort was important.

“We did everything possible, followed the rules, grew the sport, held world championships and the IOC remained opposed to including women in ski jumping,” she added. “We won’t give up until women’s ski jumping is in the Olympics, but it’s unfortunate this legal effort failed and they won’t be in 2010.”

The women had argued that being excluded from the Olympics violates Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which prohibits gender discrimination in government services.

But the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee — known as VANOC — argued that it’s not controlled enough by the government for the charter to apply to it. It also argued that the IOC decides on which sports are allowed in the Olympics, and the IOC isn’t governed by Canadian law….

…Ski jumping is the only sport in the Olympics in which women are not allowed to compete alongside men.

As noted in this post, it is a sport in which women can outperform men, which makes the discrimination that much more reprehensible. If you doubt sexism is driving the opposition, watch this:

–Ann Bartow