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Guerette and Lambert had never rowed before college, but both excelled in the sport when given the chance. CRASH-Bs is right to give aspiring athletes the chance to prove themselves at the world stage. But how many potentially great figure skaters, squash stars, or downhill skiers never get that chance? Perhaps one day, open events such as CRASH-Bs will be the norm, instead of the exception...
...originally announced its decision to exclude women jumpers from the Vancouver Olympics back in 2006. At the time, a women's world championship didn't exist, and females had been participating in the FIS Continental Cup - a notch below a world championship - for only two years. The sport didn't have very many high-profile, FIS-sanctioned competitions, but that too may have owed to gender bias. In 2005, Gian Franco Kasper, FIS president and a member of the IOC, said he didn't think women should ski jump because the sport "seems not to be appropriate for ladies from...
...sanctioned ski-jump competitions. There are at least 30 top-tier jumpers from 11 different nations - numbers equivalent to Olympic women's bobsled stats - and by the time the 2014 Olympics roll around, several more world championships will have taken place. But a Vancouver shutout has severely hindered the sport's ability to grow. Following the IOC's announcement, a recession-weary U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association dropped the U.S. women's ski-jump team, saying it could not afford to fund a non-Olympic event in this economy. Athletes have found their sponsorship opportunities limited, and Van worries that...
...like that, but there are hundreds of other issues at play." Vancouver can accommodate only so many athletes, says Lamb, and whenever a new event is introduced, it limits the number of people able to participate in others. That, coupled with the IOC's list of criteria that a sport must meet before it is accepted - a history of world championships and a sizable number of athletes participating worldwide - made the women's ski jump an unlikely addition for 2010. And yet the IOC allowed Vancouver to add something called ski cross - a freestyle discipline in which multiple skiers race...
...athletes with suspected gender disorders. The IOC, which will meet again after the Vancouver Games, is now wondering if that should change. Poorly handled cases like Semenya's suggest that the system is not working. Many athletes who agree to sex testing only learn of their medical condition from sports officials, which can be a shocking and painful way to face such an intimate revelation. María José Martínez-Patiño, who has AIS, was kicked off the Spanish national team, stripped of her titles and barred from competition in 1986 after gender-verification tests...