Nordic Combined to remain lone Olympic sport without women's event at 2026 Games

Nordic Combined will remain the only Olympic event without women at the 2026 Winter Games.

The International Olympic Committee decided on Friday not to add a women's event on the skiing program at the Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo Games in four years' time.

The long-term Olympic future of Nordic Combined was also put in doubt with no commitment to keep the men's event in 2030 unless the IOC sees a bigger global audience and more countries sending athletes to compete.

"It's a travesty," Billy Demong, a five-time Olympian in Nordic Combined and member of USA Nordic's board of directors, told The Associated Press. "This is one of the biggest moves against gender equity in the Olympic movement in history."

The IOC cited long-standing concerns with the integrity of leadership and the judging and refereeing of bouts for leaving the Lausanne-based IBA out of organizing the 2024 Paris Olympics tournaments and all qualifying events. The IOC also took control of boxing at the Tokyo Olympics last year.

Boxing, which has a year to show the IOC it should be at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, and Nordic Combined both have long Olympic histories that are at risk.

Nordic Combined tests athletes in the contrasting disciplines of ski jumping and cross-country skiing, and was one of the original 16 medal events at the first Winter Games in 1924.

However, the women's event had its first world championship only last year. Just 10 nations took part and one nation — Norway — swept the three medals.

IOC sports director Kit McConnell pointed to too-small audiences for the event overall and a lack of "diversity of countries" taking part.

"It's fair to say that it's struggled to grow on both counts," McConnell said at a news conference.

That assessment was