Jessica Jerome was in second grade when she asked her parents if she could try ski jumping. Her father’s first thought? No way!

All Peter Jerome knew about the sport was the classic introduction of ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” which showed “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.” The example of that agony was a ski jumper crashing at the end of a takeoff ramp. No chance of his daughter participating in such a dangerous enterprise.

But Jessica kept asking, and he relented. In a sport that features top jumpers who fly more than the length of a football field at more than 60 miles per hour, his little daughter took off, literally and figuratively.

She soon excelled, jumping mostly against boys, and in time she began to envision herself competing in the Olympics. And why not? Ski jumping was one of the original Olympic winter sports, held at the first Winter Games, in 1924. That dream was the beginning of Peter Jerome’s monumental 10-year campaign to help his daughter achieve her Olympic goals. Because of his efforts and the efforts of those like him — parents, athletes, coaches and other volunteers — women’s ski jumping will debut at the 2014 Sochi Games.