The International Olympic Committee has touted Milan-Cortina as “the most gender-balanced Olympic Winter Games in history.” However, one event remains off-limits to female athletes: Nordic Combined.
Nordic Combined is a two-part event that requires athletes to be skillful in both the ski jump and cross-country skiing. First, athletes fly down the hill, earning points for distance and technique. Then, the scores from the jumping portion dictate how and when the athletes will begin the cross-country ski race. Nordic Combined includes team and individual competitions, but only for men on the Olympic stage.
According to AP News, one prominent female Nordic Combined athlete, Annika Malacinski, campaigned for the IOC to include women in the event, as its popularity is growing among women outside the Olympics.
“Then the decision came: ‘no.’ No explanation, no discussion. Just ‘no,’ and then they moved on to the next topic,” Malacinski said, describing a 2022 IOC meeting.
Other female athletes who hope to see the sport added to the women’s program have held their poles up in an ‘X’ to protest the exclusion.
These female athletes aren’t only protesting to see the sport opened up to women, but to secure the same financial resources as other athletes.
“I think that we would definitely get more opportunities in sponsorship if we (were) an Olympic discipline. Definitely. There have been some (potential sponsors) who talked to me and said, ‘Ah well, but you’re not an athlete of an Olympic discipline,’” one athlete told The Athletic. “It definitely makes a difference.”
Nordic Combined may be the latest sport to fight for female participation, but the Winter Olympics has long seen gender disparities between events. Women were only allowed to participate in Ski Jumping as late as the Sochi Olympics in 2014. Cross-country skiing previously restricted women to different distances than male athletes.
Women were first permitted to compete in the Winter Olympics cross-country skiing event in 1952.
“I’m a very gritty person,” Malacinski said. “If I put my mind to something, I know I can do it. That just fuels the fire for me. We deserve to be there, and I’ll fight until 2030 because that’s our rightful place.”
