KRASNAYA POLYANA, Russia (AP) They sat together like proud parents, witnessing the birth of a child. And in many respects they were.
A few hours before the historic first Olympic medal was presented in women's ski jumping at the Sochi Olympics, some of the American architects of the sport's inclusion into the Olympics gathered near the RusSki Gorki Jumping Center hill to talk about the prolonged fight with skiing officialdom and the International Olympic Committee.
There were Bill and Nancy Hendrickson, parents of American ski jumper Sarah Hendrickson. There were Peter and Barbara Jerome, parents of American jumper Jessica Jerome (Peter Jerome was also founder of the nonprofit Women's Ski Jumping USA). And there was Deedee Corradini, president of the ski jumping group and former mayor of Salt Lake City.
''I think there is this preconceived notion that men are braver than women, but it takes a lot of guts and confidence for women to go off this big ski jump,'' Bill Hendrickson said. ''I think we have dispelled that myth.''
Corradini said that now that women have the normal hill competition - their only event here - they'll be pushing the IOC over the next four years to get a large hill and team event for women into the Games by 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
- By Dennis Passa - Twitter: http://twitter.com/DennisPassa
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Associated Press reporters will be filing dispatches about happenings in and around Sochi during the 2014 Winter Games. Follow AP journalists covering the Olympics on Twitter: http://apne.ws/1c3WMiu
