This year, women’s ski jumping debuts as an official Olympic sport. Tony Manfred notes that the “gender disparity that exists in some other sports doesn’t in exist ski jumping”:
Let’s use this season’s World Cup event in Lillehammer as an example. The men and women both jumped on the same hill on the same day in the same conditions. The men, on average, were slightly better than women in both the distance metric and the style metric. But the difference is so small as to make the two groups fairly comparable. In addition, several female jumpers outscored the majority of male jumpers. On average, the top-20 male finishers were only a little bit better than the top-20 female finishers. The men jumped 0.85 meters further, earned 2.35 more style points from the judges, and scored 6.18 more points than their female counterparts overall.
Ian Crouch suggests that such competitive male and female scoring could lead to more mixed-gender events at future Olympics:
Why shouldn’t there be mixed curling or bobsled teams? The Summer Games already have men and women competing against each other in the equestrian events; why not reintegrate some sailing events (which fielded mixed-gender teams until 1988, when women’s categories were added) or else add team golf, archery, or shooting? Such events would not only be fresh and entertaining spectacles but an expression of the “principle of equality of men and women” as demanded in the Olympic Charter.
The Dish 