By Peter Minde
This isn’t the story I wanted to write, even though ranting is easy. I’d hoped to write something on the order of, “Finally, the International Olympic Committee does the right thing. Women’s nordic combined will be included at the next Winter Olympics, Alpes 2030.”
But that is not to be. Buried in the cheery prose of yesterday’s press release, uplifting title “Alpes 2030 to be first gender-equal Olympic Winter Games,” the IOC declared that they have achieved the otherwise laudable goal of gender equality by, in part, removing both men’s and women’s nordic combined from the Games entirely. Men’s nordic combined, which is steeped in history and tradition and had been contested at every Olympics since Chamonix in 1924, has been unceremoniously killed off. Women’s nordic combined, which was angling for inclusion, never got a chance to live.
The IOC crowed about a record 3,046 athletes in the quota for Alpes 2030: 1,525 women and 1,521 men. They boasted about achieving gender parity by adding three new sports: freeride ski, freeride snowboard, and synchronized skating. They did not boast about the fact that, rather than adding women’s nordic combined alongside the men, they dropped the sport altogether. This is certainly one form of equality, but not that which the women — or the men — were hoping for.
At a Tuesday press conference, IOC big shots were unilaterally bland and upbeat. IOC President Kirsty Coventry acknowledged the disappointment of nordic combined athletes. She added, “We’ve had very good conversations with [FIS] on what the expectations would be in the future, and that the possibility could always remain open for 2034 in terms of process and the background.”
Coventry ignored a request for comment from a Japanese reporter about the impassioned letter that Akito Watabe, the four-time Japanese nordic combined Olympic medalist, had written to the IOC.
In the presser, various IOC talking heads reiterated that they had had their eye on nordic combined’s “popularity” for a few years. Pierre Ducrey, IOC sport director, chimed in, “We identified a number of issues on the popularity and on the universality of [nordic combined]. There is a path, as per the new strategy we validated two weeks ago, to come back for 2034 and we will study again, very closely, Nordic combined as part of this process.”
What, other than newspeak, is universality? Is modern pentathlon, one of the least-viewed summer Olympic sports, universal? What about trampoline gymnastics? Something called “rowing coastal beach sprints”? If you have to follow that link to know what the sport is, the sport is probably not particularly universal.
In their article Fit for the Future, published last month, IOC displays a cute multipanel graphic to help explain — or increase one’s confusion about — how sports are cut from, or added to, the Olympic roster. The graphic cites “global appeal” as one of the criteria for a sport’s inclusion. Incumbent sports such as nordic combined are subject to a “Games-time popularity assessment,” the IOC states. Candidate sports are evaluated on “public appeal” and “commercial appeal.” What’s that about? Have we sunk so low that selling TV ads counts more than tradition?
The graphic includes a panel saying that a sport can be reinstated via the “candidate discipline pathway.” This pathway is not described in the article. What are the reinstatement criteria? Transparency would be helpful here.
Over the last several months, the IOC has also suggested that because nordic combined is dominated by a few nations, it’s unpopular. This argument is like Hank Williams’s bucket. (Yes, gentle reader, another music reference: “My bucket’s got a hole in it / I can’t buy no beer.”) Adding women’s nordic combined, flush with this winter’s eye-popping performances by the U.S. women, could help ameliorate German and Norwegian domination in the sport.
What’s next
How, exactly, will the IOC determine whether to bring back nordic combined? The criteria used to determine whether a sport “has universality” and is “popular” are more opaque than some companies’ quarterly financial reports. They alluded to fourteen different metrics, but didn’t offer details on what the metrics are.
My physical therapist here in Lake Placid has a child who’s a talented nordic combined athlete. A kid who’s competed at junior world championships and at 2025 World Championships in Trondheim. He’s way closer to the sport than I am. He cut to the chase: It’s all about TV ratings, he said.
Coventry, a Zimbabwe native, was a talented swimmer who won multiple Olympic and world championship medals in her athletic career. She attended Auburn University in Alabama, helping lead Auburn to NCAA titles in 2003 and 2004. One might argue that Coventry benefited from Title IX when she competed in a country whose collegiate sports programs have populated women’s Olympic rosters for multiple generations now. She has now chosen NOT to share those benefits with women nordic combined skiers. War Eagle for me but not for thee, I guess.
Unfortunately, only two of the reporters in the press conference, which I listened to in full but was not accredited to attend, asked about nordic combined. The bulk of the presser covered Russia’s provisional reinstatement to full Olympic participation.
“The IOC has to navigate the complex realities and consequences of the current geopolitical context,” writes the IOC. “Amidst growing global instability and conflict, the IOC must uphold its mission to preserve a values-based and truly global sporting platform that provides hope to the world.”
“We thought that it was really important for athletes to have the possibility of returning back to competition,” Coventry said of this decision. This statement came in response to Russia, which continues to attack Ukraine. Draw your own conclusions as to whether hearing this statement soothes the pain for nordic combined athletes currently struggling to figure out how they might have the possibility of returning to Olympic competition.
Coventry also said that the IOC doesn’t condone violence, yet that is exactly what continues to occur in Ukraine. Russia’s reinstatement is beyond the scope of this piece; we might examine it at a later time.
Some congratulations are in order to the IOC for their efforts to achieve gender equality. Yet the IOC has also ripped to pieces the dreams and aspirations of a whole group of athletes. Let us remember here the words of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic movement, who famously said, “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part.” When it comes to nordic combined, apparently even just participation is now a bridge too far.
Read more:
