German Nordic combined team say Olympic axing is 'devastating'

German Nordic combined skiers and officials have been left shocked and fearful for the future after the sport was dropped from the Winter Olympic programme for 2030.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) decision on Tuesday had been widely expected due to the absence of women's events at previous Games and a perceived lack of marketability for the sport which twins ski jumping and cross-country skiing.

"Finding words is extremely difficult for me," triple Olympic champion and German national coach Eric Frenzel said.

Horst Hüttel, sports director at the German Ski Association (DSV), added: "For us, the decision is devastating and very disappointing."

The sport had been on the Winter Games programme ever since the first edition in 1924. Germany have been powerhouses alongside Norway, but the dearth of competitiveness is another reason for its Olympic demise.

"It has pulled the rug out from under our feet," Germany's twice Olympic champion Johannes Rydzek, an athlete representatives at ski governing body the FIS, also told broadcaster ZDF on Wednesday.

"The decision has such far-reaching consequences for our sport that we cannot yet assess them."

Minor sports such as Nordic combined are heavily dependent on government funding and sponsors. Without the Olympics, it is unclear how financing will work in the future, even for the annual World Cup.

Rydzek spoke of an assurance from the DSV that things would continue as before until the next world championships in Falun, Sweden in 2027.

"But for how long after that, nobody knows," he said.

Optimists had hoped that Nordic combined would remain on the Olympic programme and that a women's competition would have been added for the first time in the French Alps in 2030.

Instead the opposite has happened. The axing does not mean the sport cannot return from 2034, but the IOC must somehow be persuaded that audiences missed it in 2030.