On Feb. 22, the United States’ Sarah Hendrickson became only the third woman to win the ski jumping world championship when she jumped 106 and 103 meters to top World Cup overall title winner Sara Takanashi of Japan.

A little less than a year from now, Hendrickson could become the first woman to win an Olympic gold medal in ski jumping, as women will be allowed to compete in the event for the first time in Olympic history, at the 2014 Sochi games in Russia.

Until recently, the International Olympic Committee, which governs Olympic competition, refused to allow women to compete in ski jumping. Men were the only competitors who could brave the ski-jumping slopes, and the reasons for the women’s exclusion were nonsense.

In 2005, Gian Franco Kasper, the president of the International Ski Federation, told a National Public Radio reporter that ski jump “seems not to be  appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”

What Kasper was referring to was a “concern” that women who ski jumped could damage their uteruses from constant pounding after landing time after time while doing leaps of more than 100 meters. That thinking dates back to the 1950s as a reason to not allow women to compete in the sport in the Olympics.

It is sad to think that 50 years later, women are being denied a chance to live their athletic dreams because of outdated and absurd reasoning. The committee’s reasoning also didn’t address the fact that women compete in the ski jump in international competitions, such as the World Championships, but they were still being denied a chance to compete at the Olympic level.

Thankfully, the IOC made the right decision in 2011, finally allowing women to compete in the sport on the Olympic level, which opens the event to them for the first time in 2014. Now that women will be allowed to compete in the ski jump at the Olympics, it will only help grow the sport. Once young girls see women competing in the Olympics, more of them will take up the sport, which is one of the most exhilarating to watch.

There is still work to be done, however, as women will not be allowed to jump in a team event or on the large hill during the Olympics, and they still won’t be allowed to compete in Nordic, which consists of cross-country and jumping.

For now, however, it’s a small victory for women competitors who are allowed to test the large ski jump hill for the men during the Olympics.

The IOC should be ashamed of itself for not allowing women to jump off the large hill and hopefully will correct this decision for the 2018 Olympics. In today’s world, equality should be given across the board and all athletes should be given a chance to compete on equal footing. If women are good enough to test the hills for the men, then they are good enough to compete from the same hills. It’s a pretty easy decision for the committee, which is only making itself look like a male-dominated, chauvinistic governing body that it is out of touch with today’s society.

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Today’s editorial was written by Sports Editor Al Edwards on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.