US athlete Annika Malacinski isn’t competing in the Winter Olympics this year. It has nothing to do with her skill, training or ability. It’s because she is a woman.
Malacinski’s sport is Nordic combined, a unique sport that includes both cross-country skiing and ski jumping in one event. It’s the only Olympic sport that does not allow women to compete.
Women have never competed in Nordic combined at the Olympics. In a decision ahead of the 2026 games, the International Olympic Committee deemed the sport “wasn’t applicable in the women’s category”, saying that the men’s event had low audience numbers and too few countries competing.
This decision, handed down in 2022, was devastating for Malacinski. In a piece published by Self Magazine, she recalls hearing the decision while on a plane flying home from a training camp in Slovenia.
“I had been training for five years for my sport, and I was beyond ready to rewrite history. I even had a quiet thought about asking the flight attendant for a glass of champagne in anticipation of the announcement,” Malacinski wrote.
“Instead, I cried for eight hours straight.
“Sitting there, suspended in the air, the reality that my dream would stay just out of reach for another four years weighed heavily on me.”
In recent years, the International Olympic Committee has claimed that the Olympic Games is now gender-equal. That is, there are the same number of women athletes competing across sports as men. But the male-only Nordic combined event points to an obvious hole in this claim.
The decison to exclude women from the sport means that Malacinski has to stand by and watch her brother, who also competes in Nordic combined, take part in this year’s Winter Olympics without her.
On TikTok, she wrote: “So proud of my brother. So proud of his Olympic dream. And still grieving the one I’m not allowed to chase.”
“To the younger girls: your dreams are valid. The Olympics are still excluding women.”
@annika.malacinski So proud of my brother. So proud of his Olympic dream. And still grieving the one I’m not allowed to chase. To the younger girls: your dreams are valid. 🤍 The Olympics are still excluding women. #olympics #milan #olympicdreams #equality #nordiccombined ♬ you are important – matt
Malacinski comes from a family of athletes and says she first fell in love with Nordic combined as a young girl. She says she always felt like merit mattered in sport and if she worked hard enough, she’d make it to the top.
“Now I understand that chasing the Olympics isn’t just about training harder or performing better. It’s about whether you’re given a real opportunity in the first place. Access decides who gets noticed, who gets supported, and whose dreams are built into the system—and whose are treated as an afterthought,” she wrote.
“Even though this door is closed, I refuse to believe this is where my story ends. But I’m no longer fighting to be the best. I just want to be allowed to step onto the same course as my male peers.”