Mr. Rogge was simply commenting in February on the decision made in 2006 by the Executive Board of the IOC, and he is one member of it. The response you quoted was to a specific question by a reporter at a news conference. The reason it was asked was due to the fact that it was Mr. Rogge’s first visit to Vancouver since the decision was made, and there was a rather well-orchestrated public-relations campaign that occurred shortly before his visit to push for women’s ski jumping.

The campaign is underway because the drop-dead decision of the IOC to lock in the 2010 program of events and their times is this coming August, so, Mr. Rogge’s comment is not necessarily the final word on the matter.

The IOC’s position is that under rules it has had in place since the mid-90s, the IOC executive made the decision in November, 2006, after reviewing a report by its Olympic Program Commission, which advises the IOC’s executive board on requests by various international sports bodies to include specific events in Olympic Games.

The Commission’s report proposed seven sports be added. The IOC executive board judged all seven events against the same set of criteria — which includes the number of athletes participating in the sport, details of World Championships held by 2006, and noted that women’s ski jumping won’t have had enough of them before 2010.

The Commission recommended that only one of the events put forward should be included, and the IOC Executive Board followed the Commission’s recommendations. Those not included for 2010 were biathlon mixed relay, bobsleigh and skeleton team competition, luge team competition, alpine skiing nation team event, curling mixed doubles and women’s ski jumping.

I thought I’d also point out that the IOC just finished hosting an extensive (and expensive) international conference about encouraging women to become more involved in sport, particularly Olympic sports. There’s information about what it set out to do, and what it accomplished, on the IOC’s website.