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After 73 years of waiting, women will finally compete in the Four Hills Tournament or Vierschanzen Tournee. The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) confirmed on Thursday, May 7, that the 2026-27 ski jumping season will include the first ever women’s Four Hills Tournament — one of the most celebrated events in all of winter sports, contested each year around New Year at Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany and Innsbruck and Bischofshofen in Austria. Founded in 1953, the tournament has been a fixture of the alpine winter calendar for generations and is held from December 28 to January 6 each season. Until now, women have never been part of it.
The final obstacle was removed in January when the State of Tyrol, the Austrian Government, the city of Innsbruck, Ski Austria and FIS reached an agreement to fund the installation of floodlights at Innsbruck’s historic Bergisel hill — a requirement for accommodating both genders in the same program. Women compete on the exact same courses and equipment as men, making the infrastructure the only thing that stood in the way.
FIS President Johan Eliasch called it “a true milestone in the history of Ski Jumping and winter sports as a whole.” German star Katharina Schmid, who retired at the end of last season after a career that included all three editions of the women’s Two Nights Tournament — the precursor event covering the two German legs — called it “a long overdue step.” She was being generous. It was overdue by decades.
The Good News: FIS Is Walking the Walk on Equal Pay
Credit where it is due. FIS rules stipulate equal minimum prize money for men and women across all World Cup events, underscoring a commitment to gender equality in the sport. That is not nothing — equal prize money in professional sport is still far from universal, and FIS deserves recognition for getting there. In addition, FIS raised minimum prize money by 20% across all World Cup ski and snowboard disciplines for last season — 10% of which was guaranteed by FIS and the other 10% was to be carried by the Local Organization Committee.
The 2026-27 calendar also reflects a genuine structural commitment to running the two tours in parallel, with both genders sharing the same weekends at Wisla, Titisee-Neustadt, Engelberg, Lahti, Vikersund, and Oslo — plus four Mixed Team events across the season, adding Sapporo to the roster of joint venues. After years in which the women’s tour ran as a smaller parallel circuit, it is now genuinely woven into the fabric of the World Cup.
The season opens with a Mixed Team competition in Lillehammer on November 20 and closes at the World Cup Finals on the ski flying hill at Planica — the same start, the same finish, the same stage.
The Remaining Gap
Equality in ski sports has come a long way. Women’s ski jumping was added at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, narrowing the gap. Prior to that, ski jumping was a men-only event at the Winter Olympics. Women had been campaigning for Olympic ski jumping for decades and were finally included in 2014. However, Nordic Combined remains the last Winter Olympic sport to exclude women entirely.
Nordic Combined — ski jumping combined with cross-country skiing — has been on the Olympic program since the very first Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924. It has never included women. Not once in 102 years.
Women were promised Olympic inclusion for 2022, but the IOC reversed that decision in July 2018. Women have competed at the World Championships since 2021 and have a full World Cup circuit. More than 200 women from two dozen countries are now competing in the sport. They train the same hours, jump the same hills, and ski the same courses. They just aren’t allowed at the Olympics.
American Annika Malacinski, ranked 10th in the world, traveled to Milan-Cortina this February to watch her younger brother Niklas, ranked 29th, compete in his Olympic debut. She cheered for him. She also protested. “My brother is here fulfilling his dreams and I am not,” she said. “It’s so bittersweet. It lights a fire in me because this is so unjust.”
The IOC has not ruled out removing Nordic Combined from the 2030 program altogether, citing declining viewership and participation in the men’s event — though women’s numbers are growing and a Nielsen Sports survey found viewership for women’s Nordic Combined increased 25% during the 2024-25 season. The cruel irony is that the women who have been excluded may be the sport’s best argument for its own survival.
FIS Race Director Lasse Ottesen describes Nordic Combined as “the most sustainable discipline in the Olympics” — it uses the same venues as ski jumping and cross-country, requiring no additional construction. The case for women’s inclusion is not just about fairness. It is about the sport’s future.
In ski jumping, women now have the Four Hills, a full parallel World Cup calendar, equal prize money, and a growing presence on the same stages as the men. It took time to get there but the direction of travel is clear. In Nordic combined, women compete at the World Cup and World Championships but remain locked out of the Olympics entirely, with their fate dependent not only on a fairness argument but on whether the IOC decides the discipline is worth keeping at all.
FIS is actively campaigning for women’s Nordic Combined to be included in the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps — and the announcement of the first women’s Four Hills Tournament this week is, in its own way, a reminder of what is possible with something as little as an investment in floodlights. The Four Hills is a win. Nordic Combined at the 2030 Olympics would be the one that matters.
