^{Snowball's Chance in Hell:}
No Women's Ski Jumping at Winter Olympics 2010

There are no snow bunnies in Minnesota. Instead, the state is home to possible Olympic hopefuls ready to compete in women's ski jumping, if the IOC - the International Olympic Committee - will have them. But as things stand now, the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada, will not have women competing in ski jumping. It's the only Winter Olympic event that excludes women.

Freestyle World Cup? Yes. Winter Olympics? No. © Agence Zoom/Getty Images

That may be chilling news to any woman anywhere, but it's especially painful for young female skiers in Minnesota. In a feature story broadcast Tuesday, Minnesota Public Radio explains why the state takes the IOC's rejection of women's ski jumping so personally:

If there is a future for women's ski jumping, you'll find it at the top of the steepest ski hill in the eastern [St. Paul] suburb of Maplewood.

The 46 meter ramp at the St. Paul Ski Club looks like a forbidding wooden roller coaster. Twelve-year-old girls sporting spandex and helmets swoop down the hill and launch into the air like miniature stuntwomen....

Ski jumping used to be as Minnesotan as ice fishing. Norwegian immigrants brought the sport to Midwestern hilltops in the 1800s. Retired Olympic ski jumper Kip Sundgaard says Minnesota helped put American ski jumping on the map in the 1960s...."Anybody who was anybody in ski jumping in the U.S. was from Minnesota," Sundgaard said.

Over the years, ski jumpers passed their love for the sport onto their sons -- and their daughters. And parents like John Lyons are outraged by what they consider Olympic-level chauvinism.

"I've watched several girls grow up in this sport with the same dreams and aspirations that the boys have," Lyons said. "And they're denied that privilege. I think there's a couple of old farts in charge out there that ought to be put out in a barn."

Maybe them's strong words in Minnesota, but I'd use considerably saltier language if I could 'tell' the IOC to reconsider.

Just take a look at the faces of the top women ski jumpers in the U.S. How could anyone say no to these strong, enthusiastic, determined athletes simply because of gender?