Keck seeks equality for women's ski jumping

Posted: Feb. 24, 2010

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Oconomowoc's Karla Keck has been an advocate for women's ski jumping internationally.

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Oconomowoc's Karla Keck has been an advocate for women's ski jumping internationally.

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As much as Oconomowoc's Karla Keck loves the ski hill, the Winter Olympics are a source of pain and frustration.

The 2010 games in Vancouver represent the latest in a line of setbacks for her beloved sport of ski jumping, engaged in a long battle for the gender equity afforded other sports. Ski jumping stands as the only sport in the Olympics without an equivalent for both genders.

Keck, who began the sport at a very young age, has been among those at the forefront of the fight, one that has been debated in a Canadian Supreme Court and the court of public opinion.

"Olympic dreams are formed when you're a little kid, and it's a lot of work for any athlete," Keck said. "To have that continually pulled out from under you … you're training like you're in because you have to be fully committed to make it.

"You put your life on hold, your financial future on hold, your career on hold, you're traveling all the time … when you've done everything to get yourself athletically to your peak, it's very disheartening. You can't really explain what that feels like."

Disorder in the court

Once an international standout in women's ski jumping, Keck is now a coach and serves as team director for the Visa Women's Ski Jumping squad. She also recently took up a short-term speaking engagement.

"I spoke at a rally on the steps of the Vancouver art museum - I never knew I was going to be speaking and had to follow four politicians with nothing prepared because I didn't think I'd be going to Vancouver until the day before," Keck said with a chuckle. "We've done a lot of speaking; we've had a lot of press conferences leading up to the Olympics. There are six documentaries being made on women's ski jumping. It's historical."

Keck was one of 15 plaintiffs in a lawsuit presented to the British Columbia Supreme Court, claiming discrimination by the International Olympic Committee. In 2007, the IOC declined to include women's ski jumping for these Olympics, citing a lack of widespread participation in the sport. That ruling came despite the governing body of international skiing fully endorsing its inclusion in the Games.

The plaintiffs said the imbalance violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon ruled that discrimination was indeed in play, but the government had no authority to mettle with the IOC decision.

"The judges even commented to the defense, 'So basically, we chartered out our Canadian Rights of Freedom to host the Olympic games?'" Keck said. "They also raised the question, 'If the IOC decided to not allow black athletes to participate in the Winter Games, do we just sit there and do nothing?'

"Ultimately they said, 'We wouldn't like it, it's not our choice, but we're powerless.' In my opinion, that's a little weak. It's almost as if you're giving the IOC endless power. The IOC shouldn't be allowed to come to a country and violate its laws."

Breaking all the rules

The IOC has its own laws for gender equity - all new Olympic sports since 1991 have needed men's and women's events - but ski jumping has been grandfathered in under old standards.

An Olympic sport since 1924, men's ski jumping does not currently meet all the criteria for inclusion but remains on the program as a longstanding staple of the Winter Games. The women still need their sport to grow, but sports with lesser participation are earning Olympic status based on stipulations for gender equity. Ski cross is a recent example.

"All these sports that were grandfathered were being added, like women's soccer and women's hockey and bobsled and skeleton," Keck said. "Here finally, there were opportunities for these girls. But in Europe, people were kind of laughing at them. People couldn't get over the idea of women playing hockey."

The jump overseas

At age 17, she moved from Oconomowoc to Austria at a ski academy and became one of the first two females in the ski jumping program. She jumped at many world events alongside the men, spent time living in Norway and touring to multiple competitions.

She moved back to the states in 2002 and started an interior design business to abet the tumultuous schedule of working toward a degree and training on an international scale.

"I started my business right away because I realized you can't really take two weeks off a year - I was busy training and jumping up until three years ago," she said. "I took (the Visa job) while I was still recovering from an injury and then another big push came in 2010. After the vote was 114-1 (by the Federation of International Skiing) to accept ski jumping … something happened after the media pressure died down."

Jacques Roggue, president of the IOC, saw it this way:

"In any other sport you are speaking about hundreds of thousands, if not tens of millions of athletes, at a very high level, competing for one single medal," he said at a news conference, adding that only 80 women around the world ski jumped on an elite level. "We do not want the medals to be diluted and watered down. That is the bottom line."

That rhetoric seemed a bit more refined than the words of FIS president Gian Fanco Kasper, who told National Public Radio in 2005 that ski jumping "seems to be not appropriate for the ladies from a medical point of view."

Said Keck, "They were pretty much able to sweep women's ski jumping under the rug with all their excuses until he said that, and suddenly, the truth came out."

The boys club

To women in the ski jumping circuit, the gender inequity is more about the personal feelings of the sport's old guard than the logistics of including it as an Olympic sport.

American jumper Lindsey Van set the ski jump record - for men or women - at the Vancouver facility, and Keck admitted a lighter-weight jumper had an inherent advantage.

"With the evolution of the V style, the lighter you are, the better it is," she said. "The women have really come a long way pretty quickly. That progression is scary to some, and I think it has a lot to do with it. What would happen if a woman set the world distance record? (Would some think) it wouldn't be a macho sport anymore, it would be more tame? I'm speculating."

Closer to home, Keck faces the task of a furious fundraising campaign.

"After Lindsey Van won the World Championship title and our team did great, U.S. Skiing dropped women and all the funding for the program because we're not on track to win an Olympic gold," Keck said. "It's really hard because we're totally on track and we would have athletes do incredibly well there. It's out of our hands."

For now, 2014 is a "maybe."

"Even the little boys (I coach) say it's as much part of a girl's dream as a boy's dream," Keck said. "Girls do everything. This is how society is. Why shouldn't they be able to?"

The Keck file

1992-93 - Became one of the first two women to attend Austria's Internatsschule fur SchiSportler at Stams, Austria

1994 - First female to qualify for elite team at US Olympic Education Center

1995 - Competed in Men's Continental Cups in the USA. Took first and second places in unofficial Women's World Championship Demonstration in Thunder Bay, Canada

1996 - Trained in Norway; competed against men in several cup events

1997 - Won the first women's U.S. national championship at Westby, Wis.

1999 - First place unofficial Women's World Championship in Austria and second on the women's season tour

2003 - Took third at the U.S. team tryouts in Lake Placid, N.Y.

2005 - Third place at Women's Continental Cup event

2006 - Hired as director of VISA Women's Ski Jumping team

2009 - Inducted into American Ski Jumping Hall of Fame; also coaches for Blackhawk Ski Club in Madison