Park City Nordic combined athletes shine as women remain excluded from Olympics

(L-R) Park City Ski & Snowboard athletes Lomax McCrank, Andie Brown, and Daisy Schmidt on the all-girls podium of a race announced by Billy Demong and worked on by Eric Camerotta, alongside coaches Adam Loomis, Casey Larson, and Stephen Schumann. Olympians putting medals around the necks of nordic combined and ski jumping competitors on Saturday. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

PARK CITY, Utah — Girls from the Park City Ski & Snowboard Team won Nordic combined races at Utah Olympic Park and Soldier Hollow Nordic Center over the weekend, as American women also earned victories on the World Cup circuit. Despite growing participation and international competition, the sport is still the only Winter Olympic sport without a women’s Olympic event.

Just one day after U.S. Ski & Snowboard/Nordic Combined USA’s Alexa Brabec claimed her first World Cup victory, the U.S. women made history again — this time with two athletes on the podium in Seefeld, Austria.

In the Women’s Individual Gundersen Normal Hill HS109/7.5km, Brabec secured her third podium of the weekend with a 2nd-place finish, joined by teammate Tara Geraghty-Moats in 3rd. 

Teammate Annika Malacinski rounded out the team’s results in 10th place on Sunday, extending the streak of three U.S. women finishing inside the top 10, and putting the US women at 2nd, 10th, and 11th in overall World Cup standings.

At a moment when the International Olympic Committee is closely evaluating nordic combined, both for potential inclusion of women in the 2030 Olympic Winter Games and for the sport’s long-term Olympic future, performances like these carry added meaning.

“What Alex has done this season has been awesome to see,” U.S. Ski & Snowboard President and C.E.O Sophie Goldschmidt told TownLift in Park City in January. “She’s really had a breakthrough and taken it to the next level, which is great for nordic combined. We know that when our efforts excel at the highest level, it just creates more interest, gets more participants, etc. So, we’re thrilled and very proud of her.” She continued, “Nordic combined is the only sport left in the Olympics where you haven’t got equality from a genderist perspective. So for me, it’s about time that there’s equality across all sports, and I hope that FIS, and the IOC will do the right thing.”

Malacinski does have one thing to celebrate this month as her brother, Niklas is getting the opportunity to live out his dream and compete in Nordic combined in the Milan Cortina 2026 Olympics which begin on February 6.

Sadie McCrank and her sister, Lomax, train for Nordic combined in Park City, a sport that combines ski jumping and cross-country skiing. Their mom, Tasha, is a two-time Olympian in the sport of alpine skiing and is championing this issue. Tasha also coaches her son’s alpine ski racing team. “Deep down, my daughters might have a dream of going to the Olympics, and I will fight, in whatever way I can, to get Nordic combined in the Olympics for them,” Tasha told TownLift as she volunteered at their race on Saturday. “Because as a child, I dreamed of going to the Olympics since second grade and my daughters can’t, they just don’t have that, because it’s not in the Olympics. It’s in the World Cup, but that’s not the Olympics.”

Brabec’s mom is just as passionate, working tirelessly as the executive director of Nordic Combined USA. Malacinski’s mom said she is heartbroken that her daughter, who works just as hard as her son, won’t get to go to the Games.

Both families have spent decades traveling to Park City training and competing at the Utah Olympic Park and at Soldier Hollow from Steamboat Springs, Colo. and wish that recent performances will be game changers and will convince the IOC to course correct.