Skiing's international governing body announced Thursday that it will petition the International Olympic Committee to include women's ski jumping as an event at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

The IOC voted in 2006 to keep women's ski jumping off the 2010 program, saying it wasn't developed enough to meet the criteria for inclusion at an Olympics.

That led to a lawsuit by a group of women ski jumpers, who argued it was unconstitutional to allow only men to compete in ski jumping at the Games.

The B.C. Supreme Court ruled in July that the IOC is discriminating against the ski jumpers by keeping them from the games. But Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said the court does not have the power to order the sport be part of the program.

The decision is currently under appeal.

Late last month, IOC president Jacques Rogge said women's ski jumping will be included in the inaugural Winter Youth Olympics in 2012 and has a ``very strong case'' to be part of future Olympics.

Rogge reiterated the International Olympic Committee's position that women's ski jumping was "not ready'' for Vancouver, adding that the decision was made "on a technical basis and absolutely not on gender grounds.''

"As we've said since we made our decision in 2006, we remain open to considering women's ski jumping for inclusion in future Olympic Winter Games and I am sure that your event will be able to make a very strong case the next time the FIS proposes it,'' Rogge wrote in a letter to the athletes who were behind the lawsuit.