– I think it’s very sad. I think it is bad that the IOC boasts that the games in 2026 are the most equal of all time, but then it is still a sport that is not equal at all, says the world’s best combined runner in recent years, Gyda Westvold Hansen, to news. On Friday, the program commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) submitted its recommendations to the board on whether the combined women should be allowed to participate in the 2026 Olympics or not. – The argument for keeping the men in 2026 was that the Olympics are only three and a half years away and that they have been preparing for many years, but this does not apply to women because they have so far only had the World Cup once, with only ten participating nations, said IOC member Karl Stoss, who heads the IOC’s job with the Olympic program, at a press conference on Friday. The women participated for the first time in the World Cup in Oberstdorf in 2021. A few months earlier, they had also had their first World Cup race. Stoss said the following about the sport’s opportunity to remain on the Olympic program in 2030: – Combined is dependent on a significant positive development, especially in terms of participation and audience. – What I love most Hansen says that they do not buy the argument from the IOC. – If you look at the girls’ side in the last four years, there has been a tremendous development on the whole of Fjøla. Everyone has risen. It works well and people put in a real effort. – How is the mood in the team? – Right now it is weak, but we have to look ahead and work on. It is combined which is my life and which I love most in life, so that decision does not stop it, says Hansen. Hansen is currently in place at a training session in Slovenian Planica, where the World Cup kicks off this winter. – We talked to Germans yesterday. They talked about how important it was that it became an Olympic sport so that they could invest in it and have enough support to make a living from it, she says. – Still some loopholes Race manager for combined in FIS, Lasse Ottesen, he says is extremely disappointed with the decision. – There is no doubt about that. We mean of course, and it is not super objective, but in relation to the demands we received in 2018 about the Olympics in 2022, we have ticked all the boxes. We have had very good development on the women’s side. They have taken the steps all the way, says Ottesen. DISAPPOINTED: Race manager for combined in FIS, Lasse Ottesen. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB scanpix – We are in a time where the IOC is leading the way and brags a lot about how equal they are, they also say no to the women in combination. Ottesen says they will use the weekend to land after the decision. – Then we’ll make a plan. Because there is no doubt that we have the knife to our throat towards 2030, he says. However, he has not completely given up that women can get on the Olympic program in 2026. – We have not given up, there are still some loopholes we will work with, we will also see when the autumn comes if we can give some other news, he says, without wanting to elaborate on the loopholes in question. The Norwegian IOC member, Kristin Kloster Aasen, is aware that combined has a way to go when it comes to the spread of sports. In the last three Olympics, athletes from only four nations have won medals in combined. – It is also the case that support and popularity have been at the bottom of the lists for the last three Olympics. The next person on the list from below has nine times greater support among spectators, the audience and others who watch the Olympics, she tells news. – It is a much more fundamental problem for combined than that with gender balance. IOC MEMBER: Kristin Kloster Aasen. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB scanpix Fear of the sport’s future There has been great interest in the commission’s recommendations in the combined environment. Many have feared that the combined sport is on its way out of the Olympics. One of them is the former athlete Bill Demong from the USA, who covered the case in the media last week. Until recently, he was the leader of the combined ski federation of the United States, and he is still a board member. He feared that the IOC board would turn its thumbs down for the entire sport at the Olympics. – What I hear clearly through back channels is that the solution to create gender balance is that they remove combined for men from the Olympic program in 2026, Demong told the news agency AP. Lasse Ottesen believes it would be a disaster if the combined were to disappear from the Olympic program. – If combined should not be part of the Olympic program in the future, it would be a disaster, he told news a week ago. – Historical branch Norway’s combined star Jarl Magnus Riiber is clear on what he thinks about a possible Winter Olympics without combined, which has been on the program since 1924. – Combined is a historical branch, which has been there from the beginning. It started with combined for everyone who skis, he says. While combined for men has been on the program ever since the first Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924, women have never been allowed to compete in the branch. In the Olympics in Beijing in February, combined was the only branch in which only men were allowed to participate. Photo: Terje Pedersen / NTB
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– It’s very sad – news Sport – Sports news, results and broadcast schedule
