Who knows this sport with this abstract name? Especially in midsummer, nobody thinks of Nordic combined, in which, that’s right, that’s how it was, you first fly down ski jumps and then cross-country ski runs. You need some previous knowledge to be able to get excited right away – and yet these combined athletes correspond to the Olympic ideal. Because they are versatile, they have reformed again and again, they have been around for many decades.
However, all this is not enough for the International Olympic Committee IOC. Since this weekend, the entire combination, i.e. women and men, simply has to fear for their existence, otherwise the decision of the IOC Executive Committee cannot be understood. She has denied the women of this sport their premiere at the games, namely in Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026 – with the addition that maybe it will work out in 2030. At the same time, the IOC demands gender justice, i.e. demands a good women’s competition, which also with the Diversity and excitement of men can match. As a result, this is cynical.
Because as every youth representative knows, elite winter sports are all about the highest goals, about the moment in the international limelight. But if you can’t offer any prospects, you can’t get elementary school students to struggle all year round in training, in this case with a technically contradictory sport in which running needs muscles that are disruptive in ski jumping. Olympic champion Eric Frenzel and almost all other combined athletes, supervisors and trainers now see black. And for the future of the entire sport.
It is more than questionable whether the women will be able to gain more nations, create more bases and generate spectators in the next four years without Olympic prospects, which makes part two of this hidden winter drama more and more likely: the men’s division will be the next to go because it would then be the last Division that only offers an Olympic men’s competition, which contradicts the – absolutely correct – gender rules. So the IOC first excludes the women’s combined athletes from the 2026 Olympics, and then would have the opportunity to get rid of the men as well.
Nowadays, viewers want something spectacular in the snow: jumps with figures and somersaults, rides on mogul slopes
The holey argumentation and the possibly great distance to the topic allows conclusions to be drawn about this intention. It used to be said that this sport was old-fashioned, young people couldn’t do anything with it, they wanted to see more spectacular things in the snow, jumps with figures and somersaults, rides on mogul slopes.
And besides, the whole world should have access to all sports, which is why the Austrian IOC member Karl Stoss told the dpa complained: “No one does this sport outside of Europe”, although he probably inadvertently ignored the numerous Olympic and World Cup medal winners from the USA and Japan. Frenzel also rejected the claim that there are only ten nations that offer the NK, there are 13 in total. And that so far only one World Cup has taken place with the women’s combination is true – by Cortina two more would be added.
In essence, this high summer, the question arises as to who is actually the worse promoter of women – the nations or the IOC. For the German national coach Florian Aichinger, this is clearly the latter: “How can a sport develop if you take away its perspective?” he asks. Indeed, why are programmers opposed to immediately allowing a both-gender sport whose women’s division, while still growing, was (until this weekend) fully motivated?
The ski jumpers didn’t appear to be particularly diverse either, back when they were allowed to take part in Sochi in 2014 for the first time. Perhaps the lobbying work of all nations was not strong enough, Bernd Aicher, the Austrian head coach, explained to him defaultone might have been too sure.
Instead of the option of a future, there is now a barrier. It will be very difficult to overcome this by detour. Nevertheless, all affected associations accept the task of continuing against an apparently averse IOC, they have no other choice. At the World Championships, the sport has recently increased, says Aicher, and the Norwegian FIS representative Lasse Ottesen was initially stunned and then said: “We’re not giving up.” Everyone is now looking for further measures to make the combination better and still save it. Everything should be on the table, more advertising, an even tighter program, more nations. However, a lot of this has already been started.
At some point, every sports manager’s imagination reaches its limits. It would be nice, says the Austrian Stecher, for the IOC to let the athletes ski jump and cross-country ski at the same time, that would be spectacular. But it doesn’t work.