July 7 (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee on Tuesday dropped Nordic combined from the 2030 French Alps Winter Games, ending the Olympic run of a discipline that had featured in every edition since the inaugural winter cycle in 1924.
The decision, as part of a refreshment of the disciplines in the Games to make them more attractive to a younger audience, delivers a fatal blow to the combination of ski jumping and cross-country skiing.
It had been fighting for survival since 2022, when Olympic
chiefs rejected the addition of a women’s event for the 2026 Milano Cortina Games, citing a lack of global universality and a narrow base of competitive nations.
"Across most of the popularity indicators, Nordic combined ranked lowest among all Olympic Winter Games disciplines at Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022 and Milano Cortina 2026," the IOC said in a statement.
"At the most recent Olympic Winter Games, it was the lowest-ranked discipline in 11 of the 14 popularity indicators assessed. In addition, the discipline continues to face challenges in terms of universality and participation at the Olympic Games," it said.
The IOC kept snowboard's parallel giant slalom, which had also been at risk, for those Games, noting improvement in the discipline.
"The IOC EB noted that PGS – as part of the discipline of snowboard – had demonstrated significant improvement since Beijing 2022 across a number of popularity indicators," it said.
The IOC also included freeride for skiing and snowboard, as well as synchro9 — a figure skating team event — in the 2030 Games.
(Reporting by Karolos Grohmann and Tommy Lund; Editing by Alison Williams)
