Unusual career move
German winter sports athlete changes sport
02/25/2026 – 7:19 p.mReading time: 1 min.
Former junior world champion Jakob Lange is giving up Nordic combined. The 30-year-old still wants to remain an athlete.
The German winter athlete Jakob Lange has made an unusual career decision: The 30-year-old has ended his career as a Nordic combined athlete. Instead, he wants to concentrate on the marathon in the future. Lange recently set a personal best of 2:16:40 hours at the run in Seville.
“I experienced the best times of Nordic combined, had an incredible number of valuable positive and negative experiences and am very grateful for them,” said Lange. “And I think I can also be proud of what I have achieved, even if I was repeatedly slowed down by injuries or illness at the wrong moment and also had to deal with some disappointments.”
Lange was once considered an exceptional talent. However, he was denied his big breakthrough. He won the overall ranking of the second-class Continental Cup three times. He was recently no longer nominated by the German Ski Association. Aside from winter sports, he has an ambitious goal: Lange wants to “establish himself among the best 15 marathon runners in Germany.”
The future of the combination is at great risk. The International Olympic Committee will decide in the coming months whether the combined events should still be part of the program in 2030. Either the women who are currently excluded will also be included – or the sport, which has always been represented at the Olympics since its premiere in 1924, will be canceled.
