women ski jumpers win first olympic gold medal in 90 years creditmatthias schraderassociated pressfeb 11 2014krasnaya polyana russia it took 90 years for women to earn the right to ski jump in the winter games and just a day to crown their first olympic championat the debut of the womens normal hill ski jump tuesday carina vogt of germany won the gold medal outscoring daniela iraschkostolz of austria who won the silver and coline mattel of france who finished third sara takanashi of japan who dominated the world cup circuit this year finished fourthvogts victory came after a long battle that included a legal challenge that all but shamed the international olympic committee into allowing women into an event that has been part of the winter games since 1924even so women are jumping in just one event the normal hill while the men jump in three events the normal hill the large hill and a team event only 30 women competed in the normal hill less than half as many as the menyet the women who competed were happy finally to be competing on the biggest sports stageit was amazing im here among 30 girls making history said line jahr of norway who finished ninth we are a big family we are good friends everyone is jumping during the year for me it didnt matter who wonthe first jump was by sarah hendrickson 19 the american who was the world champion last year but badly injured her right knee in august and only started jumping again in january hendrickson who jumped first because she had the lowest ranking and therefore wore bib no 1 said that her knee was still shaky but she was glad to take part in historywhen i was given the bib number i didnt realize the significance of it but i was the first hendrickson said it was an honor to open up the competitionshe said she planned to take the rest of the season offi think having this injury has relieved some of the pressure for me because now im the underdog she said earlier this week i dont want to use that as an excuse but my goal was to make it to sochi and ive accomplished thathendrickson pumped her fists after her first jump of 94 meters for 1124 points she finished 21st over allthe top american finisher was jessica jerome in 10th place vogt jumped 103 meters for 1268 pointsi cant find the right words vogt said im just speechless because training yesterday was not so good stefan diaz who writes for ladiesskijumpingcom said next to takanashi she is simply the most consistent jumper of this winter i dont think she saw herself as the winner ahead of the competition and so of course had less pressure as her opponentsthe event was held late in the evening with the second jump not starting until 1020 pm after the event the 17year old takanashi said she was disappointed today i have to say