Kuwait City, Kuwait - The Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), meeting in Kuwait City, today announced the inclusion of Ski Cross (SX) for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada. At the same time, despite its stated intention to bring gender equity to the Games, the IOC opted to not approve the inclusion of Women's Ski Jumping.

"We're especially excited to see skicross added to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver," said Bill Marolt, president and CEO of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), which is the national governing body for Olympic skiing and snowboarding. "As we saw with the addition of snowboardcross in Torino, the head-to-head action sports are of great interest to youth and to fans worldwide.

"Skicross is a relatively new sport with a developing athlete base in America and around the world. Our challenge now is to start identifying that athlete base as we head towards 2010."

At the same time, Marolt expressed his disappointment in the IOC's decision regarding Women's Ski Jumping. "It's really hard to understand the decision on women's ski jumping," Marolt said. "This is a sport in which women have participated at the highest levels for many years. It has an established international competition circuit with a strong pool of athletes.

The IOC said women's jumping was not yet global enough with enough nations or participants. Ski jumping and nordic combined are the two ski sports which have no Olympic women's events, but there is no formal nordic combined women's circuit while women's jumping is in its third year as a Continental Cup schedule after several seasons as a Women's Grand Prix tour.

"We're disappointed in the decision of the IOC as we have felt that the athletes had progressed over the past decade to a position where the sport was ready for Olympic participation," Marolt added. He noted the U.S. Ski Team has named women to its ski jumping squad for the first time and women's jumping will be part of the FIS Nordic World Championships in 2009 and 2011; five U.S. women were in the top 15 women's jumpers on the sport a year ago, including Lindsey Van (Park City, UT) second and Jessica Jerome (Park City, UT) third.

There currently is no skicross team within the U.S. Ski Team but the event was part of the 2005 FIS Freestyle World Championships and U.S. athletes competed.

Skicross, which has been likened to motocross on snow, is a core event in the new-this-winter $500,000 Ski Tour in the United States with athletes competing head-to-head in heats with four athletes racing down a course, which includes banked turns, rolls and high-speed action. Participants will include Daron Rahlves (Sugar Bowl, CA), the three-time Olympian and most successful U.S. male downhiller in history.

“This is pretty exciting,” said Canadian Freestyle Ski Association CEO Peter Judge from his Vancouver office. “Ski Cross is a fantastic sport and spectators are going to love it – along with the two other freestyle disciplines, moguls and aerials, that are already on the program; I think Cypress Mountain is going to truly rock during the Olympics!

“There is a lot of action,” Judge continued, “and as we saw with Snowboardcross at the Turin Olympics, it's one of those events where anything can happen. Our challenge now is to find the funds required to ensure Canada will be in medal contention in 2010, and to build grass roots programs to ensure long term development in this new event is strong.”

Former World Cup alpine skier Zach Crist (Ketchum, ID), one of America's top SX athletes, also hailed the IOC decision - and lamented the thumbs down on women's jumping.

"It's good news for us; we were all anxious to hear. But, at the same time, I was hoping women's jumping would make it because that's a cool sport and they're exciting to watch," Crist said. "Skicross is a young sport so it's nice to have it recognized, and to be included in the Olympics.

"The Ski Tour is a super unique situation with the athletes having good input with the promoters, and this will be quite a winter for us. It's an alternative event, should be lots of fun, have the music and big-stage entertainment with a bit of an edgy feel...and I think that's what people want. And I think we can bring that kind of energy and excitement to the Olympics, too," Crist said.

U.S. Nordic Director Luke Bodensteiner said, "This doesn't change our resolve to press forward with women's jumping. These women have the opportunity to compete to be the best in the world, whether they're given that opportunity in Vancouver or not. And we'll take full advantage of that by continuing our commitment to this team and to this sport."

Marolt added, "As Luke indicated, we plan to continue to press the IOC to reverse its decision about women's jumping. It's not a question of 'owing' women another sport, but the simple fact is the number of athletes and nations participating are worthwhile, and the sport will be even larger by 2010. We feel strongly that it's important to add women's jumping to the Olympics."

In addition, the Executive Board of the IOC voted Tuesday not to add other snowsports disciplines, which were proposed for Vancouver, including the alpine team event.