CALGARY (Alberta), Jan 19: The Canadian government will continue to try and convince the International Olympic Committee to include women’s ski jumping in the 2010 Vancouver Games, a government official said following a meeting on Friday.

“We recognise this is the IOC’s decision,” Jeffrey Kroeker, a spokesman for federal sports minister Helena Guergis said. “We disagree with their original decision and we hope to respectfully change their mind.”

Kroeker wasn’t specific on what action Ottawa would take. It’s expected the federal government will have some discussions with the IOC prior to Olympic officials visiting Vancouver for a meeting next month.

“I think when the government of a host country makes the case, that in itself should raise the attention of the IOC that this is an important matter,” Kroeker said.

The meeting was attended by Chris Rudge, chief executive officer with the Canadian Olympic Committee; Brent Morrice, chairman of Ski Jumping Canada; and Cathy Priestner Allinger, vice-president of sport and venue management for the Vancouver Olympic Games Organising Committee. Also attending were Sport Canada officials, senior officials from Guergis’ office and some parents of the women’s ski jumpers.

Rudge said “a good dialogue took place among all the parties” and the COC would do what it could to convince the IOC to change it’s mind.

He also admitted it won’t be easy to have women’s ski jumping included for 2010.

“We’ve all seen stranger things happen,” Rudge said. “You never say never but obviously it will be very difficult.”

The IOC voted in 2006 not to allow women’s ski jumping into the 2010 games, saying the sport has not yet developed enough and that it didn’t meet the basic criteria for inclusion.

Morrice said Ski Jumping Canada plans to ask the International Ski Federation, known as FIS, to lobby the IOC for women’s ski jumping. FIS has already said it supports adding the sport to the Olympics.

“Unfortunately the decision does not lay within Canada,” Morrice said.

Priestner Allinger said VANOC supports the sport, but reiterated the organising committee’s function is to host the Games.

“We reconfirmed to the participants that our role is to prepare and operate the field of play mandated through the IOC’s 2010 Olympic sport programme and that we accept and respect the IOC’s decision,” she said in a written statement.

“We also explained to the participants that the IOC Programme Commission was established specifically to ensure fairness in the selection of new disciplines, and to remove organising committees from exercising undue influence over sport programme decisions for their games. This also allows organising committees to stay entirely focused on the major and complex task of preparing for the Games.”

Jan Willis, the mother of ski jumper Katie Willis, attended the meeting and was satisfied with the progress.

“Each of the sports organisations have their individual jobs to do and different people to contact,” she said. “The key is probably going to the International Ski Federation and moving on from there.”

Female ski jumpers argue not being included in the Olympics is a form of gender discrimination. The IOC says it based its decision on “technical merit” and in no way was it discriminatory.—AP