TESERO, Italy, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The Milano Cortina Games mark a pivotal moment for the sport of Nordic combined, which is fighting for its future on the Olympic programme as women remain excluded and the men seek broader global attention.
The combination of ski jumping and cross-country skiing has featured at the Games since 1924 but has been feeling the heat since Olympic chiefs announced in 2022 that a women's event would not be added because the sport was not universal enough.
The International Olympic Committee, determined to achieve gender parity at both Winter and Summer Games, also warned that the men's event was at risk due to low interest.
Norwegians have unsurprisingly dominated the medals table in the sport over the years, taking 15 of the 40 golds including two of the three titles in Beijing four years ago.
However, Jarl Magnus Riiber and Jorgen Graabak, two of the most dominant figures in Nordic combined in recent years, will not be at the Games after the former announced he would retire at the end of the season and the latter hung up his skis in May.
Heading into the 2026 Games, Austria's Johannes Lamparter leads the World Cup standings and is expected to be one of the main contenders, although traditional powers like Germany and, of course, the Norwegians will also be aiming for Olympic glory.
They will first contest the ski jumping, which is scored using the Gundersen method named after the Norwegian former Olympian who pioneered it.
Points are awarded for distance and style, with those scores converted into time gaps for the cross-country race that follows. The first skier to cross the finish line wins.
The three medal events will take place in Val di Fiemme in the Italian Alps, starting at the Predazzo Ski Jumping Stadium, and finishing at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium.
THREAT OF EXCLUSION
The threat of exclusion from the Olympics hangs heavy over the sport and its passionate advocates know that the inclusion of women would make their case far stronger.
"The women's Nordic combined team is having the best results right now out of any of the teams - they are consistently standing on podiums and showing that they are the best," Tate Frantz, a member of the U.S. Olympic ski jumping team, told a press conference this week.
"If there were here and fighting for medals that is something that would promote the sport."
U.S. Nordic Combined skier Niklas Malacinski spoke about the inequality at a press conference ahead of the Games. His sister Annika competes in the World Cup and has been an outspoken advocate for the sport's inclusion in the Olympic Games.
"I have this picture on my phone of me and my sister on a podium together when we're toddlers. And it's sad that we can't experience that with the current state," said Malacinski.
"But I've seen incredible progression through the sport, especially on the women's side of things, and I'm really hopeful that we maybe can experience the podium picture again on 2030."
(Reporting by Liz Hampton and Tommy Lund in Val di Fiemme; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
