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In January, the 23-year-old American tried out the new facility in Whistler, British Columbia, near Vancouver, where the men will compete in the 2010 Games - and she set the hill record for the longest jump.

Van and the eight other current and retired ski jumpers who filed the discrimination lawsuit over their sport's exclusion from the Vancouver Games say they are fighting not just for themselves, but for girls just entering the sport.

"I don't want to tell girls coming up who I'm going to be coaching that there is really no future for you," Van said.

The lawsuit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) alleges that by allowing only men to jump in the 2010 Games, the organizers are breaking Canadian laws guaranteeing equal rights.

Nearly all sports in the Summer and Winter Games have both men's and women's events, and the International Olympic Committee has required that of all new Olympic sports.

But the IOC has maintained an exemption for ski jumping, which has been part of the Winter Games since 1924.

"We were grandmothered out," joked Deedee Corradini, a former mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, and a member of the lobby group Women's Ski Jumping USA.

The IOC argues that women's ski jumping is not ready to be an Olympic event because only 80 women are active in the sport worldwide, and it said that the lawsuit will not change its mind.

But the women's group says the figure cited by the IOC counts only those athletes approved for international competition, and there are more than 1,000 women in local ski jumping clubs and schools in North American and Europe.

They also argue that ski jumping has more women who are internationally qualified than some other Olympic sports can boast, including women's ski cross, which will join the Winter Games for the first time in 2010.

Van thinks ski cross - in which four skiers compete all at once on a roller-coaster style hill of bumps and turns - won the IOC's approval because it is a new event that appeals to a younger audience.

The women believe they have the support of most male ski jumpers and say the real opponents are IOC members who do not know much about the sport.

VANOC complains it has been unfairly targeted by the lawsuit because it only follows the IOC's orders on what events to allow in the Games.

The organizers were sued rather than the IOC, because the Canadian hosts are legally obliged to follow the country's civil rights laws, according to the women's lawyer Ross Clark.

The suit faces several legal hurdles, however, including whether the plaintiffs from Europe and the United States are covered by the protections of Canada's Charter of Rights.

No active Canadian ski jumpers are part of the suit.

The Canadian athletes filed a complaint last year with Canada's Human Rights Tribunal seeking access to the Games, which was settled in an agreement with the Canadian government to deal with the case through mediation.

The IOC says it might allow women to compete in the future, the ski jumpers said they have heard that promise before.

"If I don't stand up for what I believe in nothing will change," said Jessica Jerome, 21, a four-time winner of the U.S. National Championships, who hopes to be part of the 2010 Games.

Reuters