The FIS Autumn Meetings in Zürich 2015 contained two Nordic Combined-centered meetings with the gatherings of the Executive Board and the Nordic Combined Committee who made some decisions coming into effect in the upcoming winter season, shaping the future of the discipline.

Race Director Lasse Ottesen opened both meetings with a striking speech on the topic of changing times. In contrast to the life of Nordic Combined athletes and coaches back in the nineties, the demands on and duties of all participants have very much changed and now include not only the sports performance in the winter but also a year-round need to promote the sport and their own profiles: be it more World Cup events with longer travel distances, additional promotional competition events in the summer or maintaining entertaining and compelling social media profiles. He appealed to all Committee and Executive Board members to keep these changing times in mind and also point this out to their respective National Ski Associations and Nordic Combined team members. He concluded that now is the time to invest in the discipline. Especially in the light of the IOC’s Agenda 2020, Nordic Combined has to prove that the discipline is flourishing, bringing in more nations and most urgently, the Nordic Combined ladies.

And also on the agenda of the two meetings, the Nordic Combined ladies featured greatly. After the Committee went over and confirmed the rules for a first edition of a Youth Cup (for boys and girls) in the upcoming winter, the Race Director presented a calendar draft featuring two Youth Cups for boys and girls and two more competition opportunities for the international Nordic Combined ladies who are able to join the OPA Alpencup Nordic Combined ladies competitions in Rastbüchel, Germany and Villach, Austria. The future goal for the Nordic Combined ladies features a Youth Cup calendar with a first overall ranking for the winter of 2016/17, a first COC season maybe as early as 2017/18 and the first Ladies Nordic Combined event at the Junior World Championships in 2019.

The calendars for the upcoming winters were presented again (no changes in the World Cup calendar, some adjustments in the COC calendar) and also the preliminary calendars for the summer of 2016 and the winter season of 2016/17 received some attention, though they are of course still subject to change.

For the upcoming winter, two novelties will also make their debut in the Word Cup competitions: the new equipment testing procedures with the crotch measurement before the jump will continue as in the Summer Grand Prix after a very successful test that met the widespread approval of athletes, coaches and functionaries. The changed metre-value for the large hill competitions which had the points per jumped metre raised from 1.5 to 1.8 points will also stay in effect and enter an extended test period of the full season and be further evaluated at the FIS Spring Meetings with a more conclusive data sample. All decisions still have to be confirmed by the FIS Council.

Source: fis-ski.com