Nordic combined, a discipline that merges the aerial artistry of ski jumping with the endurance of cross-country skiing, stands alone as the only Winter Olympic sport that has never opened its gates to female athletes. Since its debut at the inaugural Winter Games in Chamonix nearly a century ago, this historic discipline has remained exclusively male, creating a glaring gender gap in an era when Olympic equality has become a central priority.
For American athlete Annika Malacinski, this exclusion isn't just a statistical anomaly—it's a personal dream deferred. At 24 years old, she ranks among the top 15 female competitors globally, yet she must watch from the sidelines as her younger brother Niklas prepares to compete in the 2026 Winter Games. The irony is stark: while her sibling realizes his Olympic aspirations, Malacinski's path is blocked not by lack of talent or dedication, but by institutional barriers that have persisted for generations.
The fight for inclusion gained formal momentum in 2022 when officials submitted an official proposal to add women's events to the Milan-Cortina Games. This marked the second such attempt, following a similar rejection before the Beijing Olympics four years prior. Both proposals failed, leaving athletes like Malacinski in Olympic limbo.
In a passionate social media post last November, Malacinski articulated the frustration shared by many in her sport. "My Olympic dream has been taken away from me not because of my ability but because of my gender," she wrote. "For years my teammates and I have been speaking up, protesting and fighting for the chance to stand on the same Olympic start line as the men. We're still here, we're still pushing, we're not giving up."
The International Olympic Committee has offered a nuanced but firm response to these calls for change. Rather than framing the issue as one of gender discrimination, IOC representatives have positioned it as a broader question about the sport's viability itself. Mark Adams, an IOC spokesperson, explained that the committee is evaluating Nordic combined's overall place in the Olympic program, citing concerns about limited global participation and modest television audiences.
This year's Winter Games feature just 36 athletes in the men's competition, down from 55 at Beijing 2022. The IOC points to this decline as evidence of the sport's fragile position, arguing that universality—a core Olympic principle requiring widespread global participation—is lacking. Adams emphasized that the Milan-Cortina Games represent a milestone in gender equality nonetheless, with women comprising 47% of all athletes and competing in 50 of the 116 medal events.
"To all intents and purposes we are gender balanced," Adams stated. "We are taking a look at this [Nordic combined] here, the participants generally are from a small number of countries—it needs to be more universal and we will take a look at it for the next Winter Games."
Another IOC spokesperson offered a conditional promise: "Going forward, we will take data points in order to evaluate these disciplines with respective events for French Alps 2030. If Nordic combined stays, women will be part of it."
This conditional assurance does little to comfort athletes who have dedicated their lives to a sport that may disappear from the Olympic stage entirely. Malacinski and her peers argue that the IOC's reasoning fails to withstand scrutiny when compared to other Olympic disciplines. They point out that numerous niche sports with similar or even smaller participation numbers continue to enjoy full Olympic status.
The athlete community has identified more than 40 women competing at elite levels who stand ready to participate in Olympic competition. These competitors represent a deep enough field to stage a credible, competitive event—one that would undoubtedly grow if given the Olympic platform.
Malacinski fears the IOC is using the men's event performance metrics as the sole determinant for the sport's future, which would be fundamentally unfair to female athletes who have never had their chance to prove the discipline's viability. "Truthfully the IOC are just trying to take away the sport of Nordic combined so to solve equality they will just take away the sport," she told The Guardian. "It's not just me fighting for women, it is me fighting for the sport."
This perspective reveals a deeper concern: that the IOC might eliminate Nordic combined entirely rather than expand it to include women, effectively solving the gender parity issue through subtraction rather than addition. Such a move would not only deny current athletes their Olympic dreams but would also erase a historic discipline from the world's premier winter sports showcase.
The battle highlights a tension at the heart of modern Olympic governance: the balance between tradition and progress, between commercial viability and principled inclusion. While the IOC has made remarkable strides in gender equality across the Winter Games program, Nordic combined remains a stubborn outlier—a reminder that structural change often comes slowly, even in institutions committed to equality.
For Malacinski, the path forward involves continuing to compete at the highest level while advocating for her sport's future. She plans to support her brother's Olympic journey while simultaneously pushing for a future where she and her female teammates can chase their own medal dreams. Her story embodies the resilience of athletes who refuse to accept arbitrary limitations on their ambitions.
The coming years will prove critical. As the IOC gathers data and evaluates Nordic combined's place in the 2030 French Alps Games, athletes, national federations, and supporters must make a compelling case for both the sport's survival and its expansion. The promise that "if Nordic combined stays, women will be part of it" offers a glimmer of hope, but it remains contingent on factors largely outside the athletes' control.
What remains clear is that the current situation cannot persist indefinitely. In an Olympic movement that prides itself on representing the best of human achievement regardless of gender, a men-only discipline stands as an anachronism. The question is whether Nordic combined will evolve to meet modern standards of equality, or whether it will become a casualty of its own resistance to change.
The athletes have spoken clearly: they are not giving up. Their fight represents more than just access to a competition—it symbolizes the ongoing struggle for recognition, respect, and equal opportunity in sport. As the world watches the men's events in Italy, a shadow competition exists in the form of dedicated women athletes training, competing, and waiting for their moment on sport's biggest stage.
That moment may come in 2030, or it may never come at all. For now, Annika Malacinski and her peers continue to jump, ski, and advocate—building the foundation for a future they hope will include them, while preparing for the possibility that their sport's Olympic chapter may close before they ever write their names in its pages.