This week’s photos feature women skiing! The first ever recorded ski jumping event was performed by a Norwegian woman named Ingrid Olavsdottir Vestby who is said to have “soared 20 feet” in Trysil, Norway in 1862.¹ However, it wasn’t until 1990s when women were “first allowed to fully participate in international jumping competitions. In 2006 regarding the Olympics, the International Ski Federation (FIS) and the International Olympic Committee “ruled that there was not enough technical merit among women ski jumpers to allow them on the jumps” but quickly clarified that “the decision had nothing to do with gender.”¹ “Women’s jumping were not on the schedule at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, but they [were] in 2014 at Sochi, Russia.”¹

That’s all for Women’s Recreation Wednesday! Stay tuned for our next series, Wilderness Wednesdays, which will feature photos and research about National Parks, National Forests, and general conservation efforts in wilderness areas in Idaho!

Sources

Photos courtesy of UG 69 (University of Idaho Women’s Recreation Association Photographs)