There may well be box seats for the spectators at ski jumping events. To get to any seats at all, I stared at the never-ending portable stairs built into the hill I had to climb.  Already, I was blaming the organizers: for the signage written in the host country's  language that I could not read; for having security guards everywhere, who like security guards everywhere do nothing until they decide to do something; for the still falling snow at an event that required snow.

Then I heard the announcement in English: "Only six more jumps to go." Surely, I could reach the top before the event ended. After all, my husband and I had come a long way to see the American team in the first ever women's ski jumping event in the   Nordic World  Ski Championships in Liberec, Czech Republic this past February. I began the ascent. By the time I made it, once looking back to see my husband still trudging through the snow toward the steps, the announcer first chattering in Czech and then in English told me: "One more jump to go."

I saw her. Admittedly, in a snow cataract. There she was leaning and landing. An American, Lindsey Van, had won the event. I had seen the winning jump. The last jump. At the event  I had waited for, and had come a few thousand miles expressly to see. An event which I had almost missed.

I had the flag out and unfurled my way to the small contingent of Americans, also waving their flags. Hugs and hands in the air all around. Waving and air kissing to the winners. "This is history!" one proclaimed. "Isn't it great!" I offered. "Who are you?" another asked. A mother.  All of them mothers or fathers, family and close friends of the ski jumpers. 

Only a few minutes later, it occurred to me that my husband and I were perhaps, the only American fans in the stands, unconnected in any way to the team, the program or to ski jumping. To be sure, there were lots of fans who had climbed the stairs. But they were from other countries, wrapped in their own flags.  It was strangely emotional and I suddenly began to think in the language of  'jockese': This moment and this day are the women's and no one could take it away from them.

At least, not on that jubilant day in February.

Below, the medallists, Van from the United States, Ulrike Graessler of Germany and Anette Sagen of Norway were waving and hugging.This group is family. They have been flying together on training runs and to major ski jumping events in more than 4 continents for several years. These women, along with the other 186 active International Skiing Federation-registered jumpers from 18 other countries. 

We were swept along with the crowd, my husband having joined us, now part of the American contingent, learning from the mothers about the winner Lindsey Van and the other American women, Jessica Jerome, Alissa Johnson and Sarah Hendrickson, who had finished 6th, 20th and  29th. 

We were silenced by a blast of music from the loudspeakers. The winners had moved to the stands framed by the sponsor, a corporation called "bet-at-home."  I startled myself into thinking in the language of 'commercialese': Could this be a reason for Americans to miss this moment? Or was it the financial meltdown? Yes. That was it, I thought. Were they betting from their homes, illegally of course, trying to gain back all their stock market losses from the sinking world economy? How did bet-at-home, an Austrian gambling company I later learned, decide to market this event? Did it offer bettors the opportunity to wager on how far the women could fly? On how low they could lean?  On whether they would land close to or on the K-line? On how spectacularly they could fall? Or, on how many years the women had to wait to have a world title of their own?

Then the song began. No Czech winner of the Eurovision contest. Not even a Pilsen beer pong selection.  I rummaged through my neurological playlist, admiring the Czechs for their style and their humor.  Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, I remembered. All smiles, holding their skis and their end of the ski business up, the song for the winners was "The March to the Scaffold."   

This week a few of the flying women I briefly met on that day marched for a different purpose. They are pursuing their right  to be among the athletes in the parade of nations celebrating the principles of Olympism, among them gender equity, and for the inclusion of women's ski jumping into the core events of the Winter Olympics, the next one scheduled in 2010 in Vancouver, Canada.

Named the 'Flying 15,' they have sued the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee for violating a Canadian statute, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which prohibits gender discrimination. Their case now rests in the hands of a single judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, who heard arguments over the course of four  days in a courtroom filled with supporters and reporters, with other media representatives and at least four documentary film crews following the case from outside.

A few of these same women have been thinking about getting their discipline and a women's ski jumping event into the Olympics since 1994, inspired  perhaps by Eva Ganster, who became the first woman to forejump in the Winter Games of Lillehammer, Norway. Not as long as it took for American women to win the vote, a cool running that took 70 years.  But surely not as long as it has taken women living in one canton in Switzerland, who weren't awarded the right to vote until 1990.

Yet, it is in Switzerland, in the city of Lausanne to be exact, where the women and men who really count in determining the fate of the women ski jumpers convene and work. These are the members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its executives, currently led by President Jacques Rogge. And so far, these women and men have voted to ground the women ski jumpers.

Interestingly enough, across the lake in Geneva, are housed the headquarters of hundreds of international nongovernmental organizations, all pledging themselves to the ideals of cosmopolitanism and to living up to their responsibilities as citizens of the world. Those are among the very same ideals founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, was inspired to write into the Olympic Charter, and in doing so, establishing that other "ism" by Lake Geneva: Olympism. 

So what is at issue? Several issues have defined the IOC grounding of the 'Flying 15.' Most have been covered by the media over the course of what has been to the women, the longest jump, especially since 2006, the last time the IOC pronounced that female ski jumping skills were still without the appropriate technical merit for Olympics competition. 

Yet, on my return from Liberec,  I have been thinking less about issues and more about ideals.

Take the ideal called Olympism. Today, if Olympism is regarded by anyone at all, it is still about national pride, of the flag-waving triumphalism exhibited at partisan sporting events everywhere, but most visible at an event like the Olympics.

More importantly and increasingly, however, Olympism in practice is about a cosmopolitan admiration and rooting for the amazing skills of athletes of all nations, all of them seeking to be faster, higher and stronger. These athletes are increasingly women, from the well-known soccer player Marta, Brazilian superstar of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, to the less well-known, but soaring women ski jumpers, all 36 of them from 13 countries competing in Liberec.  

Further, given the pervasive influence of human rights law today, most people assume the Olympics is not so much a movement as a multinational corporation with international social responsibilities and humanitarian obligations toward a broadening array of stakeholders, among them women, who are major consumers and investors.

Likewise, if a few people think even more carefully about today's Olympism, they conclude that it should  bethinking of itself as a human rights organization.

Consider the evidence.  One. The Olympic Charter principles evoke the language of human rights. Notably, one of its principles  demands gender equity. Two. The IOC is expanding its portfolio to include initiatives on poverty and on environmental sustainability. Three. The torch relay protests and the experience of dealing with the furor over the Chinese government's handling of the Tibetan protests a few months prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, should have signaled a public attitude shift to the highest sport powers.

For a brief time, it did appear the IOC was not going to be left behind. Said IOC President Rogge in a newspaper interview after the torch relay had left scorched earth in its wake in several countries protesting against the Chinese human rights record:

"It seems to me established that the IOC is going to have to think about its role in society differently. We presently battle concretely against poverty, against natural disaster, for women's rights in sports, the prevention of epidemics. That is no longer enough. We must now think of our activities in terms of human rights, while being aware of what our possibilities and what our limits are."

In rhetoric then, the IOC claims to get it. Yet, it is unclear how the IOC balances the battle "for women's rights in sports," with thinking differently about its role "in terms of human rights," when women ski jumpers decide they have to go to court, based on a violation of a universally recognized and codified human right, identified in their own Olympics Charter:  the right of gender equity.

In reality, the IOC does not get it. Because Dr. Rogge and the IOC are the highest sport powers, they have the authority and the power to make women wait. Yes, they can rely on technical merit arguments and on the geographic reach of a given sport, both reasonable approaches to bringing new sports, disciplines and events into the Olympics arena.

But in this case, the IOC is dealing with a group that knows technical merit when they see it. It is integral to the sport of ski jumping. And for every point off the IOC has given to the ski jumpers on their technique, they have come back with improvements. Not enough countries? Not enough competitors? The annual and well documented rise in the numbers of each bely these concerns. Not a high enough skill level or depth in the competition? As many in the blogosphere have reminded us: the last ski jumper who diluted the medal count was Eddie the Eagle, decidedly neither a skilled ski jumper, nor a woman. Further, the record-making is keeping the statisticians employed. Lindsey Van, the first world title winner, has held the record for the best jump on the normal hill at Whistler Hill. Yes, the Whistler Hill that will be the ski jumping venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

In the end, the IOC just looks as if they are protecting a private organization's privilege to remain autonomous and free from outsider interference in their historically nontransparent decision-making. Their seemingly crony rulings about which sports enter and exit from the Olympics stadium merely reinforce the already prevalent view that they are most interested in the legacy of their image and in ensuring that the lighting of the torch does not represent an eternal flame, but secures for them eternal trademark s and commercial properties.

Indeed, when a few of the women ski jumpers asked President Rogge during a recent trip to North America to meet  to discuss the status of their request and ways to resolve the impasse, no meeting took place.

So, the women wait. 

Which brings me to one of the little discussed issues amidst the swirl of all issues in this battle for women's rights in sport, where the IOC has not lived up to President Rogge's admission that the IOC has "not done enough," and where instead of seeing the possibilities "in terms of human rights," the IOC has been more willing to rely on its limits. And to breathtakingly misunderstand the really important limits of sport.  

This little discussed, but important issue in the case of the Olympics grounding of the 'Flying 15,' is the ethical dilemma of waiting.

Most regard waiting as a virtue, one which is primarily good for girls. Throughout history, for the most part, it is the girls who wait. Think for a moment.  Do you know any boys in history named Patience? Yet, this brief history of waiting is not about to pit the boys against the girls, because in such a waiting game everyone loses. 

No. This is about an important detail about sport and its paradoxical relationship to waiting. One of sport's common characteristics is its timing.

One.  It takes time, and therefore patience to become a champion, so most of the best athletes start when they are young and spend incredible numbers of hours practicing fundamental skills and learning the patience to go over plays again and again.

Two. Many sports are based on time. We know the fastest are considered the best. Yet, there are other sports, among them ski jumping, where timing is a component of events. For example, women at the top of a ski jump are not given all day to decide when they want to jump. They have a specified number of seconds to prepare before they must jump or be disqualified.

Three. The amount of time athletes have to make their mark and create a legacy for themselves in their sport is short. Certainly in the last decade, the time an athlete has to be a significant player in a sport has lengthened. Nevertheless, time for all athletes runs out. 

The point of this rumination on sport and waiting is this. The IOC members and President Rogge might say that the ski jumpers' time will come, and do so by testing their patience for a possible opening in the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Moreover, they might institutionalize structures of patience and gradualism in accepting new disciplines and events into the Olympics as they have done in order to create an orderly way to bring new sports into the Olympics fold.

But the IOC does not truly understand that, in doing so, they also fail to recognize the consequences to the athletes of having to wait. The fact is that the athletes do not have the luxury of being patient. They do not have the time to wait. They have their own stairs to climb and sooner rather than later, they confront their own last jump.

For now, the IOC has passed on the consequences and has given them over to a judge in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, who after listening to the hearings and all the arguments, concluded that she would have to reserve immediate judgment because the issues in the case are "very complex. "

And so, the women still wait.

When I decided to research a special report for a2ethics.org on the case of the women ski jumpers, I was mindful that my experience in Liberec on that magical day when I witnessed Lindsey Van's last jump, was just one side to what I sensed was a case with "very complex" issues with many sides.

Instead, I found that this matter of the 'Flying 15', and indeed its consequences will not be not complex at all. The decision the judge has to make is to determine whether the IOC's own determination to keep the women ski jumpers waiting is a violation of their human rights. It is a decision that has great consequences: for the IOC and for women's sport. 

Why? Because this is a decision not only about the IOC role "in terms of human rights," and their awareness in finally recognizing human rights as fulfilling the possibilities of women as well as men to be the best at ski flying and soaring.

It is also about making the IOC aware that acknowledging the human rights of others also includes understanding that there are limits to the dignity and fairness of demanding that it is always the athletes who must wait.