American Nordic combined skier Annika Malacinski dreams of becoming an Olympic athlete.
Instead, she must watch from the sidelines as her younger brother, Niklas, realises that dream at the 2026 Winter Games.
Nordic combined – a combination of cross-country skiing and ski jumping – is the only Olympic discipline in which women cannot compete.
The event has been a feature of the Winter Olympics since the first edition in Chamonix in 1924 but has only ever been open to men, despite there being women’s World Cup and World Championship events.
Malacinski, 24, has been campaigning for the women’s event to feature at the Olympics for years and in 2022 a formal proposal was made to include it in Italy this year.
A similar proposal was made before the Beijing Olympics four years ago – both were denied.
In a post on Instagram in November, Malacinski said her Olympic dream had been taken away from her “not because of my ability but because of my gender”.
“For years my team-mates and I have been speaking up, protesting and fighting for the chance to stand on the same Olympic start line as the men,” she said.
“We’re still here, we’re still pushing, we’re not giving up.”
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says the event is “in question overall” and that it is not a discussion about women but about the sport as a whole, citing low participation across different countries and a lack of viewership.
This year 36 athletes are taking part in the men’s event in Italy, down from 55 at Beijing 2022.
The IOC also says Milan-Cortina is the most gender-equal Winter Games with 47% of the athletes women, while 50 of the 116 events are for females.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: “To all intents and purposes we are gender balanced. 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 spokesperson added: “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.”
