Future of Nordic Combined: Either with women – or the sport will die out

Nathalie Armbruster will be sitting in a commentator’s booth in Munich this Wednesday, giving her analysis of the first Olympic competition for Nordic combined athletes in Predazzo and Tesero – and, as always, also finding critical words. Because if everything had gone as planned, the opinionated overall World Cup winner of 2025 would not have had any time to watch the competition from a distance. Then she would have been at the start in this discipline herself.

But things didn’t go as planned; Combined athletes are not permitted, as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided four years ago. Like in Beijing in 2022. This makes your discipline the only one at the Winter Games without gender equality. However, an even worse scenario threatens for 2030: In addition to women, men could also be left out of the Winter Games in the French Alps. The latter have been there since the International Winter Sports Week in Chamonix, which was subsequently declared the first Winter Olympics. If this scenario were to occur, it would be nothing less than a sell-out of a core Olympic sport.

The IOC’s main arguments: too few female athletes and competitive nations, too few TV ratings and marketing opportunities for men too, too unattractive races and audience response in the World Cup, too little reach on social media. “We are aware of the challenges that Nordic combined faces for both men and women,” said IOC sports director Pierre Ducrey shortly before the start of the Winter Games.

A delegation from the IOC is expected on Wednesday for the Gundersen combined ski competition – Gundersen because the Norwegian Gunder Gundersen once developed a process in which the ski jumping result is converted into time intervals for the subsequent cross-country skiing. In the morning, the group, which may also include IOC President Kirsty Coventry and Karl Stoss, will watch the jumping at the ski jump and cross-country skiing at lunchtime. Stoss is considered a powerful IOC official; he is chairman of the program commission, which recommends which disciplines should become Olympic, which should remain – and which would face Olympic death.

The IOC is expected to decide in May whether there is a future for Nordic combined, and for Horst Hüttel, the sports director of the German Ski Association (DSV), one thing is inevitable: “It will only go in one direction. Either the women come in for 2030, or the men go out.” But Hüttel, like many others, finds it difficult to recognize a trend. He calls the IOC a “black box” in this matter.

The men protested again and again at the past World Cups, shaping their cross-country skiing poles into an X before their starts, symbolizing the female chromosome. “You more than deserved to be there,” says German combined athlete Johannes Rydzek, who said in Armbruster’s direction: “It broke my heart when we said goodbye.” Meanwhile, Armbruster said on ZDF: “I watched the opening ceremony, but it was very painful to watch and know: I would be there and could live my childhood dream – but I’m not allowed to because I’m a woman.” She had already said in an SZ interview at the end of November that she found the non-admission “discriminatory with regard to our services”.

It’s also about her future and that of her colleagues, who play a sport that is still very young but is developing rapidly. The first World Cup took place in Ramsau in Austria in December 2020. More and more nations are now fighting for the podium, and more and more female athletes are pushing to the top. Currently, DSV sports director Hüttel said at a press event shortly before the Winter Games, two thirds of all girls who ski jump also do cross-country skiing. But what motivation would they have if the IOC doesn’t give their discipline a future?

In the men’s category, the Germans Vinzenz Geiger, Julian Schmid and Johannes Rydzek will fight for gold in the Gundersen competition on Wednesday. If they were to drop out of the program in the future, it would be a hard blow, especially for Germans who are used to success. National coach Eric Frenzel, himself a three-time Olympic champion and now on the sidelines at the Winter Games for the first time, said on Monday regarding the announced high-profile IOC visit: “Of course it’s great that they are there and can see for themselves our competitions. Even if I would have wished that they had come to a World Cup beforehand to see the women in advance. It’s also about seeing what they do.”

It’s about equality, participation, funding for coaching positions and positions for top athletes in the police, customs and the Bundeswehr. And in the end it’s simply about the survival of this sport. Because without Olympic status and without the money she receives for it, she probably has no chance of remaining visible, and not just in Germany. “It would be absolutely tragic if the combination was removed from the program. Sooner or later this would mean the end of the sport,” said Vinzenz Geiger. And Austria’s best combined athlete Johannes Lamparter spoke in the SZ of a “slap in the face” if the IOC actually decided against his sport. The overall World Cup leader certainly has fears for the future: “If we were no longer in the Olympics, then there will have to be a plan B.”

The effects of an IOC decision that takes away the Olympic place from Nordic combined would extend beyond this sport, warns sports director Hüttel. Because, as he says, the ski jumping facilities are also financed by funding from the Nordic combined athletes, and boarding schools fear for their continued existence. There are reports from Norway that half of the winter sports boarding schools depend on Nordic combined. Hüttel speaks of an impending “complete fiasco”, also with a view to the 2030 Olympics. Because the normal hill in Courchevel has to be renovated for many millions of euros for the Winter Games. If the Nordic Combined were to be eliminated, it would still host two Olympic competitions – and would then have a massive problem operating economically.