No Olympic Ski Jumping for Women? (Thread started in 2010)

[notfrommensa]

@pulykamell

If we’re talking about the 105.5 record, that was broken by Adam Malysz, with a 109m jump in training, and officially in competition by Simon Ammann, with the 108 meter second round jump to cap off his gold medal performance. Several other jumpers hit 105.5 or higher in the qualification or medal rounds (there were a total of 8 jumps that hit 105.5m).

At any rate, 105.5 is no small feat on that hill. That’s a monstrous jump. I would love to see women’s ski jumping as an Olympic event, and there is no sensible reason for it to be excluded. None whatsoever.

Well, apparently it harms the uterus:

In 2005 Gian-Franco Kasper, president of the International Ski Federation, said ski jumping is detrimental to a women’s reproductive system.

After I read this, I saw the womens moguls event. I am just wondering how the women’s reproductive system are un-harmed in moguls and somehow catastrophic in ski jumping.

[mnemosyne]

BIG BUMP >> Sum(little bumps)

Or some screwy logic like that!

[asterion]

@amarone

There is also no women’s decathlon in the Olympics.

But at least there’s the heptahlon.

[dzeiger]

@mnemosyne

BIG BUMP >> Sum(little bumps)

Or some screwy logic like that!

But there are Woman’s aerials. I’ m not sure how the jolt of landing from a ski jump compares to a near-vertical launch, twisting and turning yourself around, and then landing, but I’d be surprised if it’s all that different.

[amarone]

@asterion

But at least there’s the heptahlon.

Which sends the message that the weaker sex is only capable of handling seven events.

[EllisDee]

@notfrommensa

After I read this, I saw the womens moguls event. I am just wondering how the women’s reproductive system are un-harmed in moguls and somehow catastrophic in ski jumping.

Okay, first off, the official reasons banning women from ski jumping are clearly and obviously a crock of shit. I mean, anyone watch the men’s ski jumping? Without resorting to hyperbole, I honestly feel they land with less shocking force than a long-jumper in the summer games. Seriously, it is propbably the gentlest gravity game for skiiers to participate in.

However, after reading this thread I had real trouble watching the women’s freestyle aerial skiing earlier today. I swear to god, every time they landed I half-expected their uterus to shoot out their cooch. It amounts to flying up in the air 30 feet straight up, and then coming straight down landing on an almost flat surface. Yikes.

Then I got to thinking about similar disciplines, wondering how the uterus doesn’t come shooting out in the summer games when they stick the landing after a vault in gymnastics. Ugh.

And while most of this is tongue-in-cheek “ha ha what a stupid bullshit justfication,” it’s not completely that. As women age, prolapsed uterus isn’t unheard of. “Excess weight lifting” is an actual risk factor for the condition, so the countless landings in freestyle skiing and gymnastics could conceivably be risk factors as well.

Hell, Dr. Drew says women shouldn’t do anal because when you get older you’ll get a prolapsed anus. (He’s curiously mum about gay men, always targeting this advice specifically to women. Wonder why?) Meaning older women’s insides getting worn out isn’t unheard of.

So now these women’s events with hard landings creep me out a little. Anyone care to help fight my ignorance here and prove that the repeated high-force shocks these athletes sustain during the landing aren’t a risk factor for a prolpased uterus? (Stipulating that ski jump is not one of those disciplines. Freestyle skiing and gymnastics are mostly what I’m thinking of. Not moguls, either; those hurt the knees, not the core.)

[pulykamell]

@EllisDee

Okay, first off, the official reasons banning women from ski jumping are clearly and obviously a crock of shit. I mean, anyone watch the men’s ski jumping? Without resorting to hyperbole, I honestly feel they land with less shocking force than a long-jumper in the summer games. Seriously, it is propbably the gentlest gravity game for skiiers to participate in.

According to this reference:

The model shows that Freestyle Aerialist have landing shocks equivalent to a vertical drop of 20 feet to a flat surface. This is over twice the landing shock of the Nordic Jumpers even though the Nordic Jumpers travel at twice the velocity and fall twice as far.

[…]

Nordic ski jumping has been modeled by Muller et al. (1995 and 1996). They found that most jumpers have a very small impact on the landing hill equivalent to a vertical drop of < 1 meter, even though they fly distances over 100 meters (328 ft.) with vertical drops over 30 m (98 ft.). The Nordic skiers experience light landings because they are flying close to the hill which is shaped for their flight trajectoryp.

[…]

The Aerial jumper model shows landing impacts of 3.2-6.1 m (10-20 ft) in vertical drop whereas Nordic jumpers experience much smaller impacts of 0.6-2.4 m.

Once you get past the K point in a ski jump, though, it does get a bit dicey as the hill flattens out and you’re taking a much harder landing. I would not be surprised if the impacts significantly beyond the K point enter the realm of 20 foot vertical drops.

[notfrommensa]

thanks for the input EllisDee and pulykamell, but I really did not think this thread would become a TMI thread. “Prolapse anus in older women” [/shudder]

[puzzlegal]

Discourse just recommended this thread to me. To catch up, women’s small hill was added in 2014, and this year both men and women are competing in large hill, normal hill, and a mixed team event. Huh.

[Babale]

I thought “wow, women are still barred from this event?” Before noticing the dates on the posts.

The fact that Lindsey Vonn was already a record holder (unless Lindsay Van is actually a different person?) is pretty crazy to think about!

[BlankSlate]

@amarone

There is also no women’s decathlon in the Olympics.

I know this is an old thread and this is a bit of a tangent, but the topic includes the exclusion of women in certain olympic sports. I never thought much about the difference between the Heptathlon and the Decathlon. There are five events that are the same in both:

100m Hurdles
Shotput
Long Jump
High Jump
Javeliin Throw

And the women have two unique additional:

200m
800m

And the men have five unique events:
100m
400m
1500m
Pole Vault
Discus Throw

There was a time when women couldn’t compete in the pole vault in the Olympics, but have done so in the past 7 summer games, which means that women compete individually in all of the events that are unique to men in the decathlon. Is there any reason not to have a womens decathlon?

[Jasmine]

@notfrommensa

IOC’s position:

The IOC contends that women’s ski jumping doesn’t have a broad enough global appeal and lacks sufficient international participation to merit inclusion at the Olympics.

So, they’re actually telling us that something like women’s ski jumping is not interesting enough to viewers, but things like “artistic swimming” and “badminton” are?! That’s equus caballus excretion.

[puzzlegal]

Well, they were. There are a lot of ski jumping events open to women, now.

I was just surprised that as recently as 2010 they were saying, “oh noes! this sport might hurt the fragile female reproductive system”. That’s pretty funny to read in a year when men are literally having their reproductive system poisoned to get some small advantage in this sport. (Although i suppose it’s the penis they are having poisoned, not the testicles. They can probably still safely reproduce.)

[zimaane]

However, there is still no Nordic Combined event - a combo of ski jumping and cross-country skiing - for women.

[Ulf_the_Unwashed]

I thought I read somewhere that they were getting rid of the Nordic combined altogether after this year. No?

[Yllaria]

@puzzlegal

I was just surprised that as recently as 2010 they were saying, “oh noes! this sport might hurt the fragile female reproductive system”.

This may be a hijack, but I’d like to see a list of things that were originally hypothesized to damage women’s reproductive systems. I’ve heard it was said about trains, when they started going over 30 mph. And I’m trying to remember the specifics of “education” that was tiring to women’s brains and thereby damaging to their reproductive organs.

[snowthx]

Women were banned from running marathons until 1967, and the women’s marathon was not added to the Olympics until 1984 - for “health” reasons.

[notfrommensa]

16 years later, and I have no recollection of starting this topic.

Guess there is womens ski jumping now. Progress.

[running_coach]

@BlankSlate

There are five events that are the same in both:

100m Hurdles
Shotput
Long Jump
High Jump
Javeliin Throw

The men run 110m.
The hurdle heights are also different.
Men 42"
Women 33"

[Chronos]

@puzzlegal

That’s pretty funny to read in a year when men are literally having their reproductive system poisoned to get some small advantage in this sport.

Wait, what?