Lindsey Van

Lindsey Marie Van is an American former ski jumper, born on 27 November 1984, who won the first of 13 U.S. National Ski Jumping Championships in 1998 and competed in her first FIS event in 2002. She won the gold medal in the inaugural women's ski jumping event at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships 2009 in Liberec and has eight Continental Cup victories. Her career was interrupted by injuries: she crushed knee cartilage on the landing of a practice jump in 2008, and she has had four knee surgeries and a ruptured spleen. She was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the organisers of the 2010 Winter Olympics, brought with other women ski jumpers who argued that only men were allowed to compete in Vancouver, and the appeal was unsuccessful. Women's normal hill ski jumping was added to the Olympic programme for 2014.