Can we dispense, once and for all, with an old sports myth that seems to be at play in a Vancouver courtroom this week? It’s the one that says women’s bodies are somehow less able to stand up to the rigours of hardcore athletic training and competition than are men’s bodies.

Again and again, it has been debunked at every level of virtually every sport over the past 40 years or so. Perhaps most famously, Kathrine Switzer’s bold entry into the Boston Marathon as simply “K. Switzer” in 1967, and a race organizer’s attempts to pull her off the course after the race had begun, established a precedent that has resulted in as many women as men competing in long-distance running events. While there are still battles to be won in terms of gender equity in sports, the biological argument has been completely and utterly debunked.

We don’t believe even the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which has been described as the world’s most entrenched old boys’ network, believes women’s bodies are incapable of standing up to the rigours of training and competing in ski jumping. (On the other hand, comments in 2004 from IOC member Sepp Blatter, the president of international soccer governing body FIFA, that women needed to “wear tighter shorts” for the women’s game to achieve broader appeal with fans, indicate that there still may be a bit of old boys’ type of sentiment in the hierarchy.)

You’ve got to hand it to the 15 women’s ski jumpers who are taking on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Organizing Committee (VANOC) — and by extension the IOC — this week in B.C. Supreme Court. While it’s clearly the IOC that is blocking their bid to compete at Whistler Olympic Park next year, they have chosen to deal with the issue by suing VANOC in our country’s own courts, arguing that barring women from competing on a separate but equal basis represents a form of discrimination under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Games are, after all, taking place on Canadian soil and should, by all rights, measure up to our highest ideals. Presuming that the B.C. Supreme Court judge decides in favour of the 15 women, though, one has to wonder whether the IOC — which is still, for better or worse, the body responsible for determining the Games program — can be forced to include women’s ski jumping in next year’s program.

The IOC argues that women’s ski jumping hasn’t yet achieved the necessary criteria to be included as a full Olympic sport. Those include at least two successful world championship events (one has taken place so far) and a certain, undetermined, number of athletes competing at a high level, in enough countries. The plaintiffs claim the actual number of high-level competitors is far higher than those being used by the IOC (which voted in 2006 against allowing the sport in 2010) as part of the basis for its decision.

While we sympathize with the IOC’s desire to ensure that the value of an Olympic medal isn’t watered down through the inclusion of certain “fringe” sports in the Games program, we think every Canadian knows in his or her heart that the barriers will fall — the only questions being “when” and “where.” With both the numbers and competition level of women’s ski jumping clearly ramping up, we feel confident that the IOC wouldn’t be making a mistake by bending its rules a bit and allowing that breakthrough to happen here.