A second ski jumping event was added for women to participate in at the Beijing Games. Organizers added a Mixed Team jump to the schedule, giving the women a chance to compete beyond just the Normal Hill Individual event. But the reason to celebrate for the women took a chaotic turn.
On medal day, five women — representing teams from Germany, Japan, Austria and Norway — were disqualified from the mixed event for loose-fitting jumpsuits.
The reason? Their clothing supposedly gave them an advantage when airborne.
“We were so happy to have a second event (for women) here at the Olympics,” Germany’s Katharina Althaus, one of the women DQ’d, said. “The [International Ski Federation] destroyed everything with this operation. I think they have destroyed women’s ski jumping. I don’t know what they’re trying to do.
“I have been checked so many times in 11 years of ski jumping, and I have never been disqualified once, I know my suit was compliant.”
The women who were disqualified in the mixed event had already been checked and cleared to compete in those same suits just days before. Althaus, on Saturday, won a silver medal in the women’s individual event, wearing the same jumpsuit.
“160 World Cup starts, 5x World Championships, 3x Olympic Games and I got DSQ for the first time. My heart is broken,” Althaus wrote on her Instagram later. She and the German team were disqualified after the first round of the mixed event on Monday.
Competitors being disqualified from Olympic events is not uncommon, but according to the athletes competing in the mixed event, the five DQs were unprecedented.
“I’ve seen a lot of Olympics but this was the first time I’ve seen anything like this,” Japan’s Yukiya Sato said after his teammate Sara Takanashi had one of her jumps DQd.
It’s just the latest example of women’s uniforms in international competitions becoming the story. Too baggy in ski jumping. Not skimpy enough in beach volleyball and handball.
“I am sorry on behalf of ski jumping,” Clas Brede Braathen, the Norwegian ski jumping chief of sports told Yahoo! Sports. “This is something we should have cleaned up before the Olympics. The sport of ski jumping has experienced one of its darker days today. I’m lost for words. This is very painful for the athletes. I’m in pain on behalf of our sport.”
In the case of the women ski jumpers: it would have been one thing if those world-class athletes had been checked prior and told their jumpsuits were not up to standard. But to have their outfits disqualify their jumps mid-competition is the most insidious form of delusion to a sport known for trying its hardest to keep women from competing in it.
Women weren’t allowed to compete in ski jumping at the Winter Games until 2014.
The men in the sport already had three events they could be eligible for: two individual and one team event. The mixed team event was the fourth competition men ski jumpers could participate in at the Olympics.
And with the Normal Hill competition already over, this is how the story ends for the women ski jumpers.