Technical delegate stopped girls from flying as trial jumpers in Vikersund. The decision was revised later on.
Like in the recent years some female jumpers registered as trial jumpers at the skiflying world cup in Vikersund. Wednesdays trial round was stopped by the FIS Technical Delegate Marko Mlakar (SLO) just in the moment, when Line Jahr (NOR) was on the way to the starting boom. According to Norwegian media Mlakar and his assistant Salvi Franck (FRA) were not familiar with the rules for ladies skiflying and wanted to check first, if they are allowed to start or not. Many of the local organizers, such as the Chief of Competition Ole Gunnar Fidjestoel (NOR) were upset about that decision. In the list of results published on www.vikersund.no the organizers clearly speak out, that the girls elimination from the list was “discrimination based on sex”. As the starting list was available already for days it is totally odd why the Technical Delegates did not raise their objections earlier.
Finally on Friday it was confirmed that the girls are allowed to fly because the way Vikersund organizers interpreted the rules in the last years was right. Not only Jahr, also Anette Sagen (NOR), Helena Olsson Smeby (NOR), Lindsey Van (USA) and Jessica Jerome (USA) started in Fridays test jumping. Sagen set the girls longest jump in the training to 177.0 m.
Results of the stopped training round:
http://www.vikersund.no/filer/filsystem/Resultatliste_testhopping_torsdag.pdf
Results of fridays training round:
http://www.vikersund.no/filer/filsystem/Resultatliste_testhopping_fredag.pdf