Revolution in ski jumping: The women have celebrated a great success in the fight for “level playing field” and will be able to stage their first ski flying competition in the coming season.
The responsible sub-committee of the World Federation FIS decided unanimously on Wednesday that a women’s competition should take place on the world’s largest hill, “Monsterbakken” in Vikersund, Norway.
“We agreed to open this door to women,” the committee said in a statement: “There are still many concerns and fears about safety and other issues, but the timing is right to let women of to start a ski-flying hill.”
The competition is not intended to count towards the World Cup, since only jumpers over the age of 18 are allowed to participate. The plan is for the 15 best adult athletes in the World Cup to take part in the Raw Air Tour in March. The superordinate ski jumping committee still has to approve the decision on May 9th.
So far, women were only allowed to complete individual test flights with a special permit in the framework of men’s competitions. The Austrian Daniela Iraschko-Stolz has held the world record since 2003 with a 200 m jump on the Kulm in Bad Mitterndorf.
For a long time, women jumpers had struggled to include flying competitions in their competition calendars.