Canada names Olympic ski jumping teams as women make Games debut

Atsuko Tanaka, Alexandra Pretorius and Taylor Henrich were named to Canada's Olympic women's ski jumping team Sunday ahead of the sport's Winter Games debut next month.

The three Calgary natives will compete after the sport was skipped by the Vancouver Games in 2010 but later included on the program for Sochi, Russia.

The fight to include women's ski jumping prior to Vancouver went to the courts only to have the Supreme Court of Canada rule against the athletes' appeal in 2009.

"I have lost count of how many jumps I have done leading up to this point," said Tanaka. "But every jump got me one step closer to my goal and that was to make the Sochi 2014 Canadian Olympic team and I couldn't be more proud to represent my country in Russia."

Mackenzie Boyd-Clowes, Dusty Korek, Trevor Morrice and Matthew Rowley will represent the men's side for Canada.

The women's ski jumping competition begins Feb. 11 at the RusSki Gorki Jumping Center. The men's qualification round begins Feb. 8.