Most ‘gender-balanced’ Olympic Winter Games still ban an entire women’s division

Karra Smith, Staff Writer

For many competitive athletes, competing at the Olympic Games is the peak of their career, but for women in Nordic combined, this has yet to be an option. 

Nordic combined is a winter sport that mixes both cross-country skiing and ski jumping and has remained an Olympic event since the first Winter Games were held in 1924. 

It is also the only Olympic sport to date that upholds a gender-restriction policy barring women from competing at the games. 

Annika Malacinski, an American skier and champion Nordic combined athlete, is leading a campaign that demands equal opportunity for women in the sport. 

“[We] work just as hard, sacrifice just as much,” she told NPR.

Back in 2022, Malacinski had joined a conference call with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) while on her flight back to Denver from Munich. It was during this call that her dreams of competing in the Milano Cortina were crushed. 

“Then the decision came: ‘no.’ No explanation, no discussion. Just ‘no,’ and then they moved on to the next topic,” Malacinski told the Associated Press. 

By the time she had arrived in Denver, her eyes were almost swollen shut from how much she had cried. 

Although she was still attending the games in Italy, Malacinski was there cheering on her brother, who competes in the same sport. 

While many winter athletes continue to push for equal opportunity in the games, the future of Nordic combined as an event at the Olympics is unknown. 

Due to a decline in audience interest and fewer competing athletes, the IOC has spoken of cutting the sport altogether. 

“Truthfully, the IOC is just trying to take away Nordic combined. And so to solve equality, they are just going to take away the sport,” Malacinski told The Guardian. 

The Milano Cortina 2026 marks the most gender-balanced Winter Olympics ever, with women representing 47 per cent of all athlete positions.

 However, Malacinski told The Guardian that the IOC is still “excluding a women’s division,” and in the fight for equality, she has no intention of backing down.

“That just fuels the fire for me,” she said to the Associated Press. “We deserve to be there, and I’ll fight until 2030 because that’s our rightful place.”

And this is not the only gender-based controversy to come out of the 2026 Olympics. 

With its unique combination of cross-country skiing and ski jumping, Nordic combined holds a test of both power
and endurance. Photo courtesy of IntoWinterSport

Following both the women’s and men’s U.S. hockey teams taking gold in the finals, the women’s celebration was short-lived after President Donald Trump made jokes at the expense of the women’s team during a congratulatory phone call with the men’s team. 

“It was sort of a distasteful joke, and unfortunately, that is overshadowing a lot of the success, the success of just women at the Olympics carrying for Team USA and having amazing gold medal feats,” captain of the U.S. women’s hockey team Hilary Knight told ESPN.

The U.S. women’s hockey team declined their invitation to the White House alongside the men’s team, stating there was a schedule conflict.

This conflict has brought bigger discussions of women in sports and the ongoing fight against sexism in athletics.