I still have major issues with Madsen for shilling Botox, but her Title IX Productions which she formed last year is taking on a good fight – the right for women ski jumpers to compete in the Olympic games.
Film follows 15 athletes and their fight against the International Olympic committee. Ski jumping is the only remaining Olympic sport that is strictly men only. The women compete in international events, it’s just the Olympics that has issues. Get over it.
Here’s what Madsen had to say:
“To think that in 2009, in a celebrated, international event like the Olympics, women are still dealing with discrimination is pretty shocking,” Madsen said. “We knew instantly we wanted to throw our support behind this project and get the word out there.”
The film is also produced by Empire 8 and Trish Dolman from Screen Siren.
Virginia Madsen to defy ‘Gravity’ (Variety)
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It’s completely appalling and shocking that women aren’t allowed to compete in this sport in the Olympics, yet women’s schnyronized (sp?) swimming is recognized as a so-called “sport.” WHAT A JOKE.
I agree that there is really no reason for women to not be able to compete in Olympic ski jumping. Also, remember this is the body that waited until 1986 – 1986! – to have the women’s marathon.
Just a quibble, though. As silly as synchronized swimming can look (the waterproof makeup, frozen smiles), the athletes have to train very hard to do it, and have to be physically fit to do it well.
I suppose it comes down to one’s definition of sports: do only gamelike physical endeavors (where competitors go directly head-to-head)? Doing so will eliminate not only synchronized swimming, gymnastics, ice skating, but also ski jumping and diving.
You’re absolutely right!! It’s downright deplorable that we would expect the female ski jumpers to live up to the same standards every other sport added in modern times has!
They’re women! We can’t expect them to follow the rules. They want to ride the coattails of the men just because they’re women and who are the Olympics to say no?
Oh, and why don’t the allow men in sycnro swimming? Hmmmm…
By the way.. lots of things are physically hard to do but not sports. Syncro swimming is performance art, not a sport. (Anything that uses judging as a final score is art – not sport – male or female)
Oh, I think Aaron Matthews would be perfect for sycnro swimming!
Ignorance is bliss. Apparently poor dear Mr Matthews does NOT realize that the top echelon of women jumpers have been at it for a VERY long time, and that they train and compete on the same big hills as the best of the men. Perhaps he doesn’t realize that they HAVE jumped through the hurdles put up in front of them for years, survived broken promises, and still continue to fight.
Maybe some day he’ll be in a situation that’ll demonstrate whether he has as much guts or gonies as these women. And perhaps he doesn’t realize that on the 90 meter Olympic jump in Vancouver (the one they have petitioned to compete on), exactly NINE athletes have flown over 100 meters … five of them women. And maybe he’ll find it hard to believe that the record on that hill, 105.5 meters, was set by Lindsey Van of the USA, who in February became the first Women’s World Champion! She’s the first US jumper to win ANY medal in a major ski jumping event since Anders Haugen earned a bronze in 1924.
Women were included in the World Championships this year by the FIS … the International Ski Federation. That same body voted 114-1 to recommend to the IOC that women’s ski jumping be included in the 2010 Olympics. Apparently that wasn’t a big enough majority for the old men of the IOC. Don’t believe it’s an old boys’ club? Look it up.
Maybe Mr Matthews will actually see some ski jumping in person some day (it’s amazing now many “experts” have never seen this sport live) and realize that gender means nothing. There aren’t as many outstanding women as outstanding men. Yet. Olympic inclusion will mean a lot to growth, as it has for other sports.
As for the fact there are judges … jumpers can score UNLIMITED points for distance … but judges can award a finite number of points. In a good competition where everybody’s flying way down the hill, the judge scores often amount to little more than tie-breakers between jumps that are identical or very close in distance. Sometimes there are distance-only elimination events, especially in the US. The best jumpers tend to win with or without the judges because they fly farthest, and that’s what it’s all about. Distance.
In the first USSA-sanctioned distance only event, about six years ago in Minneapolis, Jessica Jerome, then a high school girl, had the longest jump of the day. She fell, and was disqualified, but the field included a whole lot of the best jumpers in the US at the time, both men and women.
They’re not asking to be included in the Olympics because they’re women … they’re asking not to be EXCLUDED for that reason. There’s a world of difference. And the IOC has already included women in sports that don’t meet the criteria they’ve thrown in the face of female ski jumpers. Every one of their excuses is lame, and does not hold up to objective scrutiny. Dig into it, Matthews. The facts are out there.
One of our outstanding young female ski jumpers, Avery Ardovino, had worked her way up from small hills, and was jumping from the 120 meter (largest) Olympic hill in Park City at age ten. Another, Sarah Hendrickson, won her first international competition this year, on a 90 meter hill in Poland, at the age of fourteen. Sarah trains with all our women on that 120 meter hill, too.
A couple of questions for Mr Matthews … what were you doing at age ten? How about age fourteen?
I’d wager that if you had been training and performing in some sport at that level, behind a superb bunch of older athletes, and you saw nonsensical roadblocks thrown up in your path, you’d have found the motivation to fight, too. Put yourself in their boots.
Olympic inclusion is what’ll keep people like Avery and Sarah in the sport, and bring along a whole lot of young talent behind them. We’ve lost too many already because there was no future. Thank goodness we’ve had so many in the US and worldwide who have stuck with it as long as they have. I wish everyone could meet some of them … they’re an amazing bunch of young women.
Thanks for the facts!
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