Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
The announcement Wednesday that five women had been named to the U.S. ski jumping team landed quiet as a feather, but it signaled a momentous leap in the sport.
Four months ago skiing's international governing body voted to include a women's competition for the 2009 world championships. That cleared the way for women's ski jumping possibly to become an Olympic sport by the 2010 Winter Games, something the International Olympic Committee's executive board could approve in the coming months.
"We're planning and operating right now like it's going to happen," U.S. Nordic director Luke Bodensteiner says.
Ski jumping and Nordic combined -- in which participants compete in ski jump and cross-country skiing -- are the only Winter Olympic sports without women's events. Only about 16 countries have women's ski jumping programs, though that number has more than doubled in recent years.
Wednesday, Lindsey Van and Jessica Jerome, Nos.2 and 3, respectively, in women's ski jumping's world rankings last season, and three other U.S. women joined male Olympians Alan Alborn and Clint Jones on the USA's "A" roster.
"It's always been a dream of mine," says Van, 21, a Utah native who began ski jumping at age 7. "I never thought it would happen."
The "A" designation means the women will be fully funded by the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association.
In years past, the female jumpers cobbled together money for training and travel expenses from their own bank accounts, from their parents and through donations from a 4-year-old Park City, Utah-based foundation named Women's Ski Jumping USA, which Jerome's father, Peter, helped form.
"It definitely just gives us more motivation," Jessica Jerome, 19, says of being on the U.S. team and working toward the world championships. "There was motivation there before, but now every time we go to training, it's like we're actually doing this for something."
To see more of USAToday.com, or to subscribe, go to http://www.usatoday.com
© Copyright 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
