Prior to the Olympics, the world record holder for distance at Vancouver’s Whistler normal ski jump was American Lindsey Van. In 2009, Van jumped 105.5 meters.
Van didn’t get to defend this in the 2010 Olympics, however. While Lindsey may be a unisex name, Olympic ski jumping isn’t a unisex sport, and Lindsey is a woman. There is no women’s ski jumping in the Olympics, and women can’t compete with the men.
As you can see from the individual results, just two men beat Van’s record. The linked Time article goes into detail about why the IOC has chosen not to have the event, but no amount of explanation can change one simple fact: The world record holder for Vancouver’s jump was ineligible to compete, solely because of her gender. That’s not right.
