No Olympic Ski Jumping for Women?

[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]