The B.C. Supreme Court ruled against the female ski jumpers last month. (CBC)

With time ticking and the 2010 Olympics fast approaching, a group of female ski jumpers will be back in a B.C. court in November to appeal a ruling that failed to overturn the International Olympic Committee's decision to exclude them from the Winter Games.

The B.C. Court of Appeal will hear the case Nov. 12-13. That's just three months before the Games officially open Feb. 12.

A B.C. Supreme Court Justice ruled last month that the IOC is discriminating against women ski jumpers by keeping them out of the Games, but Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said the court lacks the power to order the IOC to include the sport in the Vancouver Games.

Ross Clark, the lawyer representing 14 current and former ski jumpers, said his argument will focus on the finding of discrimination and the judge's ruling that the Vancouver Olympic Games Organizing Committee, known locally as VANOC, is a government entity.

"The Supreme Court judge found the women had been discriminated against, and she found that VANOC is carrying out a government activity," Clark said in a statement.

"But then she stopped short of the next logical step, which would have been to grant us the remedy we were seeking. We will ask the Court of Appeal to revisit that."

Case heard in April

The women went to court in April to argue that their exclusion from the Games violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

They wanted the court to rule that VANOC must either add women's ski jumping to the Games or cancel all ski jumping events.

John Furlong, VANOC's chief executive officer, said organizers would abide by a court's ruling.

"If the decision somehow changed from the one we are now dealing with, and we were instructed by the IOC to stage an event, then, as we've always said, … we would move heaven and earth to make it happen," Furlong said in an interview last week. "That's the best I can offer you at this moment.

"We are not planning that event today."

Time could be running out for the athletes. A split decision in the Appeal Court would likely prompt a bid to take the issue to the Supreme Court of Canada.

In her decision, Fenlon said the IOC, not VANOC, decides which sports will be included in the Games. The international committee is not governed by Canada's Charter, nor does the organization fall under her court's jurisdiction, Fenlon wrote.

The judge also said that although VANOC does fall under the Charter, "not every act of discrimination is a breach of the Charter."

The IOC voted in 2006 to exclude women's ski jumping from the 2010 Games. It said its decision was based on "technical issues, without regard to gender."

"With too few athletes competing in this event, and no world championships until one year before the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games, women's ski jumping does not reach the necessary technical criteria and as such does not yet warrant a place alongside other Olympic events," the IOC's media relations manager, Emmanuelle Moreau, said in November 2008.

Supporters of women's ski jumping argue there are 135 top-level female ski jumpers in 16 countries — more than the number of women competing at that level in other sports that are already in the Olympics.