Lasse Ottesen: “If you’re not following Nordic Combined, you’re missing out”

With the 2025/26 FIS Nordic Combined World Cup season fast approaching—and the Olympic Games on the horizon—FIS Race Director Lasse Ottesen says the sport is poised for one of its most exciting campaigns in years.

In an interview, Ottesen predicts headlines like “the closest World Cup overall fight in Nordic Combined history” and argues that anyone not following the discipline is “missing out.” He credits national federations and local organizers for building strong events, new highlights and new venues, setting the stage for a compelling season.

Reflecting on his 15 years as Race Director, Ottesen says his passion for Nordic Combined has only grown. He describes the sport’s evolution through rule and format changes, noting that ideas are vetted openly with all stakeholders each spring. Some concepts are field-tested by federations while others stay on paper; among the successes he singles out the Nordic Combined TRIPLE, traditionally staged in Seefeld, Austria, while acknowledging that not every experiment succeeds.

On the balance between tradition and innovation, Ottesen points to the historic adoption of the Gundersen format—combining ski jumping and a cross-country race on the same day, and eventually standardizing around one jump plus 10 km—as a change that reshaped the sport for the better.

He highlights the rapid development of Women’s Nordic Combined as a major point of pride over the past five to six years, adding that FIS is working toward Olympic inclusion for women in 2030. Behind the scenes, he says the biggest challenge is orchestrating all stakeholders and technical systems during events—recalling a tense moment in Ruka when a power loss forced a race to run on backup timing with only minutes to spare.

Looking ahead, Ottesen says ongoing collaboration with athletes, organizers and broadcasters is yielding new ideas and technical improvements, hinting at further innovations he’s not ready to reveal yet. What excites him most each winter, he concludes, is the uncertainty about which athletes and teams will emerge, combined with the energy of motivated competitors and organizers across the tour.