Before the Winter Olympics
“Huge mess”: DSV star criticizes sharply
November 22, 2025 – 7:09 a.mReading time: 2 minutes
Nathalie Armbruster is one of the best in the women’s Nordic combined. But one circumstance causes incomprehension for the 19-year-old – it becomes clear.
Nathalie Armbruster is still very concerned about the fact that the Nordic combined athletes will not be allowed to compete at the Winter Games in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026. “It really, really hurts,” said the overall World Cup winner in an interview with Eurosport.
Armbruster expressed clear criticism of the International Olympic Committee. She described the fact that women are still not equal in the 21st century as “a huge mess”.
The women’s Nordic combined will be excluded from the Olympic Games in Italy. The discipline’s first World Cup only took place in 2020. It remains to be seen whether the 2030 competition will still be part of the program in France. Although the IOC officially calls for gender equality, it also criticizes the performance gap. Only a few nations such as Germany and Norway are currently represented at the top of the world. The world association FIS, however, points to increasing numbers of participants among athletes and nations.
Armbruster announced that she would not let up: she wanted to “fight and fight” until the IOC took a look. The level has “extremely increased” in recent years. Now she hopes to be able to prove by the next decision that the women “deserve to be at the Olympics.” A decision for 2030 should follow after the Winter Games in Italy.
On December 5th, the new World Cup season begins for the combined athletes around Armbruster in Trondheim, Norway. Personally, the athlete from the Black Forest, who has now graduated from high school, doesn’t want to let the pressure get too great. After her strong previous year and the expectations that came with it, she said it would be “cool if I could fight for the top three positions in the overall World Cup again.”