While the Olympics may be adding multiple new disciplines for its next Winter Games, it will go without a familiar, iconic competition for the first time in Winter Games’ history.
After over 100 years on the Olympic program, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has decided to drop Nordic Combined from the Games. Nordic Combined, which features cross-country skiing and ski jumping, has been at every Olympic Games since its inaugural event in Chamonix, France, in 1924.
The decision to cut Nordic Combined from the program has left the disciplines’ athletes, coaches, and directors in shock and disappointment. Advocates for the sport have spent years trying to prove that the sport deserves an Olympic stage, with women recently competing alongside men.
“Today’s decision by the IOC is extremely disappointing,” said Nordic Combined Race Director Lasse Ottesen in a statement posted by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS). “I am at a loss for words and struggle to understand the reasoning behind it. Nordic Combined has been at the heart of Nordic skiing and part of the Olympic Winter Games since 1924. That is why today’s decision is so difficult to accept and even harder to understand.”
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Struggling With Popularity
The IOC’s decision to drop Nordic Combined was based on a global study on the discipline’s popularity. In the lead-up to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina, Italy, the IOC said Nordic Combined “by far” had the lowest audience numbers of the previous three Olympics, according to The Athletic.
“Based on the findings of this study, together with trends observed across previous studies of past editions of the Olympic Winter Games, the IOC (executive board) discussed the status of Nordic combined and decided not to include the discipline on the Alpes 2030 programme,” the IOC stated in its press release.
In addition to small audiences, Nordic Combined has struggled to grow more popular in countries around the world. It is a sport traditionally dominated by Norway, which won gold in all three of the discipline’s events at the 2026 Games. The remaining medals were either won by Finland or Austria.
A Rare Removal
Dropping Nordic Combined from the program is a surprising move, given the rarity of the situation. The IOC has not dropped a sport or discipline from the Winter Olympics since bobsled took a single-Games hiatus at the Squaw Valley, California, Games in 1960. It was removed from that program because organizers did not want to build a venue.
Something New
Also in a rare move, the IOC has decided to add freeride skiing and snowboarding to the 2030 program, effectively taking Nordic Combined’s place. Freeriding is the third completely new sport introduced in the Winter Olympics in the last 30 years. The second most recent addition was ski mountaineering (skimo), which made its debut in Milano-Cortina 2026.
Joining freeriding in 2030 will be synchro9, a mixed singles relay in biathlon, men’s and women’s team sprints in speed skating, mixed team events in freestyle ski cross and snowboard parallel, plus a ski jumping women’s super team event. Skimo will once again be included.
With the inclusion of freeriding and the other additions, the IOC says the 203o Games will be the first gender-equal Olympics. For the first time, 50% of the Games’ athletes will be women, with 56 women’s events, 55 men’s events, and 15 mixed events. Nordic Combined has slowly become more popular among women, with the FIS launching its women’s Nordic Combined World Cup circuit in 2020. While Nordic Combined athletes had hoped that its deeper field, which saw more women competing, would help make a better case for its inclusion, the IOC did not take that into account.
“We were assessing the discipline and not necessarily the men or the women,” IOC sports director Pierre Ducrey said in a press conference after the announcement, according to The Athletic. “What was really at stake was the universality of Nordic combined overall as a discipline, its capacity to raise audiences.”
That’s where freeriding made its difference felt. The Freeride World Tour, which includes 11,000 riders from 76 countries, captures attention. Its big mountain freestyle personality, dangerous lines, and pristine terrain capture the sport’s action along with the backdrop of the Alps.
A Potential Return in 2034
While it will not be included in 2030, the IOC left the door open for Nordic Combined’s reintroduction in 2034 in Salt Lake City, Utah. While it has a steep road ahead without Olympic inclusion, the sport’s leaders are determined to make a comeback.
“Despite all, we will never lose the confidence in the future of our sport and give everything we have to come back even stronger,” FIS Nordic Combined wrote in a post.
