2025-26 Season Preview
Introduction
The 2025-26 Nordic Combined season has arrived. With Jarl Magnus Riiber retired and Gyda Westvold Hansen making an Olympic attempt in ski jumping, there is much uncertainty with how the season will unfold and what new stars will fill their places as regulars on the podium.
2025 saw a change in Crystal Globe status with the Germans returning to supremacy for the first time since 2017. On the men’s side, Vinzenz Geiger won his first ever Overall after finishing on the podium three consecutive seasons from 2020 through 2022 and then failing to make it in 2023 and 2024. On the ladies’ side, 19 year old Nathalie Armbruster broke the Norwegian women’s stranglehold on the sport.
The scope of this post is just the individual World Cup season. The Olympics will have their own prediction posts shortly before they come around.
Outside the Races
Schedule
Venues
Here are the venues for this season with the last season they performed there in parentheses (Men/Ladies when both racing there if different otherwise just that gender).
Men/Ladies
- Trondheim (2025)
- Ramsau (2025)
- Schonach (2025)
- Otepää (2025)
- Oberstdorf (2024)
- Seefeld (2025)
- Lahti (2025/Never)
- Holmenkollen (2025)
Men Only
- Ruka - Kuusamo (2025)
- Val di Fiemme (OWG) (2022)
- Bad Mitterndorf (Never)
Being the niche sport that it is, Nordic Combined does not have a lot of venue options to vary from year to year. Despite that, 2026 will have a couple of firsts. One is Lahti will host women for the first time. On the men’s side Bad Mitterndorf in Austria will be a new host by bringing in the men for a race in February.
Notables absences are women from the Olympics. It’s embarassing that ladies are not allowed to compete in Nordic Combined at the Olympics, hopefully this is the last instance of that. Furthermore, Lillehammer will not be hosting a competition for the first time since 2021. It appears that Nordic sports are beginning to favor Trondheim over Lillehammer. Let’s see if that continues in future years.
Races
In terms of what’s on the schedule, this is the breakdown:
Men
- Total races: 20
- Individual Compact: 5
- Individual: 10
- Mass Start 5
Ladies
- Total races: 16
- Individual Compact: 4
- Individual: 8
- Mass Start: 4
Equal participation for women is slowly coming as more venues are host women’s competitions.
And for proportions of Individual Compact has lower proportion than Gundersen as compared to last season.
Men
| Category | 2025-26 | 2024-25 | 2021-2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Races | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| IndividualCompact | 0.25 | 0.315789473684211 | 0.0927835051546392 |
| Individual | 0.5 | 0.473684210526316 | 0.793814432989691 |
| Mass Start | 0.25 | 0.210526315789474 | 0.11340206185567 |
Ladies
| Category | 2025-26 | 2024-25 | 2021-2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Races | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Individual Compact | 0.25 | 0.428571428571429 | 0.1875 |
| Individual | 0.5 | 0.357142857142857 | 0.6875 |
| Mass Start | 0.25 | 0.214285714285714 | 0.125 |