USA Nordic Sport notified its Nordic combined athletes last week that the organization would no longer fund the national team program or its partnership with the Norwegian National Team.
Late Wednesday night, that news became public.
In April, the USANS’s executive committee and sports committee announced a directive to the ski jumping and Nordic combined programs to fundraise a minimum of $150,000 each by the end of May to further its Norwegian partnership into the 2024-25 season.
The deadline was extended slightly earlier this month, but the goal was not met, leading USANS to make the decision to cut funding from its Nordic combined program while continuing to provide additional non-financial support, along with U.S. Ski and Snowboard. The specifics to the additional non-financial support, however, are still unclear.
“We view the programs as being successful, but what happened since about COVID time is we lost a lot of revenues that were coming into the sport, whether it was donors or sponsors that cut way back,” said USANS Board of Directors Chairman Tom Bickner in an April meeting. “That has put an extreme financial strain on the organization, and we had to cut back a lot of what we did and cut back a lot of staff.”
The ski jumping program, on the other hand, managed to stay afloat after finding some big donors to front enough money to keep its program and the partnership with Norway alive.
Alexa Brabec, a 19-year-old U.S. Women’s Nordic Combined National Team member from Steamboat Springs, was stunned to learn about the newest hurdles in a series of obstacles she has faced within the sport.
“It was super disappointing to hear that USA Nordic was no longer supporting Nordic combined, but in response I have really seen what a large and supportive community there is behind us outside of USA Nordic,” Brabec said. “I am still hopeful for this season despite this devastating news, and I am excited to focus on training and keep working toward my goals.”
The Norwegian Partnership
In August 2022, USA Nordic Sport announced a historic partnership with Norway, the birthplace of Nordic skiing. The partnership allowed for access to training camps at world-class facilities in both nations and more importantly the ability to train under coaches from both nations, including wax technicians from Norway.
Just two years into the collaboration, the new philosophy and equipment improvements led to a winter of personal-best finishes across the Nordic combined World Cup circuit.
“The other beautiful thing about it, especially for an individual sport, when it is just the two or three women traveling along, it is kind of lonely,” said Jill Brabec, Alexa’s mother. “The beauty of the partnership is training and competing with the Norwegian women who happen to also speak English all fluently. They have teammates, positive reinforcement and training partners to push each other. It is everything you want to have a successful program.”
A great deal of the American success this winter can be attributed to the success of the Nordic partnership.While the U.S. was unable to reach a podium this season in a Nordic combined World Cup event, many of the athletes managed personal-best results.
Steamboat’s Annika Malacinski was the top finishing American in the overall World Cup standings this winter at 14th. She placed in the top 10 three times and reached a personal best eighth-place in Ramsau, Austria.
Alexa Brabec had similar success for the women, earning the title of Nordic Combined Athlete of the Year while recording a personal best World Cup finish by taking 10th in Seefeld, Austria, and 21st in the overall World Cup standings. She also became the first American woman to medal in Nordic combined at the Junior World Championships, where she stood atop the podium twice with two silver medals in Planica, Slovenia, earlier this year.
Niklas Malacinski and Grant Andrews — also athletes from Steamboat Springs — closed this season with personal bests by finishing 14th and 32nd, respectively. Niklas, along with Ben Loomis and Stephen Schumann, all landed in the top 30 overall for the men’s Nordic combined World Cup standings — a feat that has not occurred for the United States in a decade.
New fundraising efforts
Struggling to see their children distraught from the deterioration of the sport, a group of mothers teamed up to create a task force — including local parents Jill Brabec and Steph Wilson — to attack the issues at hand.
The task force organizers are in the process of creating a nonprofit, Nordic Combined USA, which has already launched its website,NordicCombinedUSA.org. The urgency of the matter comes from a desire to renew the relationship between the American Nordic combined athletes and Norway before the training season begins.
The website will soon be accepting donations, and in the meantime, checks can be sent to: Nordic Combined USA, PO Box 771815, Steamboat Springs, CO 80477.
The nonprofit’s goal is to raise $500,000 by the end of the year to fully fund an entire season partnered with Norway, while also putting money toward equipment and travel expenses. Wilson estimates that around $100,000 will be needed over the next handful of weeks to sign a contract with Norway and rekindle the partnership for a few months while the fundraising efforts continue.
“This is kind of a make or break moment for the sport,” Jill Brabec explained.
On Wednesday, a fundraiser will be from 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Howelsen Hill, giving a chance for visitors to tour Steamboat’s ski jumping facility and have lunch with some of the nation’s best Nordic athletes. The tour will be hosted by Steamboat Nordic combined Olympian Ben Berend.
The fundraiser will continue later that afternoon with a co*cktail party and athlete meet-and-greet from 4-6 p.m. at Steamboat Flyfisher.
Those interested in attending the fundraising events should email swilson@trianglessolutions.com.
Should fundraising go as planned, Nordic Combined USA will turn its head back to the original task force mission of keeping the sport in the Olympics, building awareness, gaining viewership and continuing to develop the club-level pipeline.
“We have met with Norway to talk about next steps and they are very supportive,” Wilson said. “The reason the other countries are so engaged is because, by the end of this season, the International Olympic Committee will be watching the sport and making a decision. This next winter is the most important winter for the future of the sport.”
A foggy future
In 2022, the International Olympic Committee announced it would not include women’s Nordic combined in the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Games, sending shock waves throughout the sport. More recently, the IOC doubled down by saying the future of the men’s sport would remain in question looking ahead to the 2030 Games.
This spring, the International Ski Federation offered a number of check marks the IOC is looking for to determine the fate of the sport.
The first is to see how many nations are performing at a high standard at the developmental level; Junior World Championships and Youth Olympic Games performances play a role here.
The second is to see how many nations are scoring World Cup points at a relatively consistent rate. The third, and from a larger perspective, is to collect data on TV viewership and popularity in the sport across the globe.
Without funding and without access to coaching and equipment, Nordic combined in the U.S. could be in trouble. Should the sport dissipate from American interest, it would become even easier for the IOC to nix the sport entirely.
2024 marks the 100-year anniversary of the first Winter Olympic Games, which took place in Chamonix, France. Nordic combined was one of the original nine disciplines that athletes competed in during those Games.
A century later, Steamboat Springs has become famous for producing more Olympic athletes than any other town in the country and a large sum of those athletes were Nordic skiers.
The town has long been a stronghold for the sport beginning with Carl Howelsen, who shared his passion for Nordic skiing with the introduction of the Winter Carnival in February 1914.
Wilson said there is not only a place for Nordic combined in the Olympics and on the global stage, but especially for young athletes growing up in Steamboat Springs who want to chase the successes of so many local greats who came before them.
“Sport is supposed to just be pure,” Wilson said. “It is a way for human beings to test their abilities, see depth in the world, inspire others and for kids to learn lessons and all these cool things. They’re just going to throw away a sport, potentially, because there are not enough people watching it. … Do we not have a place in our world for supporting things just because of heritage, tradition and what it does for human beings? That’s sad to me from a world view.”
