Time is running out, but the women ski jumpers who have not been allowed a place in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics are taking one last shot at their dream.

The group, including world champion Lindsey Van and several others from Park City, plans to ask the Supreme Court of Canada for permission to appeal the lower-court decisions that have gone against them, its lawyer said.

"We believe our argument has been misunderstood and that a matter of national importance is at stake," attorney Ross Clark said in a statement.

The women maintain that a Canadian law that prohibits gender discrimination should bar organizers from keeping them out of the Olympics. Ski jumping and Nordic combined, which includes ski jumping, are the only Winter Olympic sports that do not allow women to compete.

The International Olympic Committee said that's because the sport is not developed enough around the world, though the women have argued their sport is more developed than some others that have been added to the Olympic program in recent years. Previous court rulings have held that only the IOC decides which sports are included in the Olympics. Clark argues that organizers in Vancouver should not be "forced by a foreign entity to put a discriminatory decision into effect in Canada."

 


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