Forgotten skis and missed exchanges

Ingrid Olsdatter Vestby is the first recorded female ski jumper in 1863, the lengths of her jumps were never recorded.

Nora Glende jumped 5.5 meters in 1892.

Ragnhild Pløen jumped 12.7 meters in 1895.

Hilda Stang jumped 14.5 meters in 1902, and improved it to 22 meters in 1910.

Have in mind this was in a time when women were, for the most part, not allowed to compete. Mostly they were allowed to jump in between the rounds of the men's competition to entertain the crowd. They were met with comments on how this would ruin their chances of having children in the future, and that they did not wish to drag women's corpses out of the hill. Some women even disguised themselves as men to be allowed to jump. In fact Ingrid Olsdatter Vestby sneaked in a jump in 1863 during the men's competition. The reactions of this was however very strong with a comment saying - "Hopefully it won't get normal that women try to jump. It's tempting to try, but it would be better for both parts that they would stay away from this sport"

Despite various opinions on letting women compete or not, the Fjelken hill hosted possibly the first ski jumping competition for women in 1896. An impressive 50 women participated.

Here is a painting from the competition in 1898 by Gustav Wentzel.

I don't know the point of this post other than i admire all the ski jumping women, those now and those who came before them <3