Turns out a group of female ski-jumpers are suing the Vancouver Olympic Committee regarding its decision to abide by the IOC’s directive not to hold a ski-jump competition for women in the Vancouver 2010 Olympics.

This is a stupid reason to have a court case. I am for complete equality, but not at the expense of common sense.

First, why the hell are they suing Vanoc? What can Vanoc do about it? Defy the IOC? Fine! No olympics for you!

Second, the IOC has said that the sport is not developed enough for the Olympics. What that probably means is that in Canada there are a bunch of female jumpers and perhaps there’s a small contingent of them in some Nordic countries, but internationally, there just isn’t a large enough pool of athletes to make it a worthwhile competition. What good is highlighting the best in the world when only four people are competing (hyperbole, I know). So you’re the best of four. So what? Kind of defeats the purpose of a global competition like the Olympics.

The women say that either they should be allowed their sport or the men’s sport should be canceled, which feels like fantastically poor sportsmanship to me.

Instead, why not roll the women into the men’s competition? Why is this not a solution? Perhaps there’s some physical reason why the women would beat the men or vice-versa, but in the article some of the women claim they beat some of the men, so the footing seems pretty equal to me. Why hasn’t anyone considered this solution?

Tags: Olympics

I found this open letter printed in the Georgia Straight, a local left wing free paper here in Vancouver, a couple of weeks ago. Now, don’t get me wrong, even though politically, I’m pretty conservative, I love the Straight for the voice it gives to those who aren’t usually heard.

That said, sometimes there’s a reason those voices aren’t heard. From the article:

We would also recommend that you ask staff to consider if potential penalties involved with Vancouver withdrawing from hosting the 2010 Games outweigh the looming costs to the City for security and other Olympic costs.

This is marginal thinking at best. Pull out of the games? Are you nuts? Imagine the lawsuits from every business owner who decided to move to Vancouver, from every condo owner who bought here, from all the investors in the various Olympic venues, not to mention the costs of all the infrastructure projects begun here in the last four years.

Publishing an open letter by nut cases like this damages the reputation of the Georgia Straight and marginalizes voices that might have genuine, well-thought out issues about the Games (whatever they might be). Most frighteningly, there appears to be some people with medium-sized reputations who signed that letter. Come on, people, try reading what you signed!

Tags: Georgia Straight, Olympics