German duo face fight to defend World Cup crowns in new Nordic Combined season
Nov 20, 2025·Nordic Combined
FIS Nordic Combined Race Director Lasse Ottesen believes the 2025-26 season could see “the closest World Cup overall fight in Nordic Combined history”.
It will have to go some to match last season’s emotional rollercoaster, where two new overall title winners were crowned, dethroning champions who looked destined to add further Crystal Globes to their collections before some dramatic late twists.
Vinzenz Geiger (GER) and Nathalie Armbruster (GER) made it a double for Germany as they both won their first titles in unexpected circumstances.
Five-time overall men’s champion Jarl Magnus Riiber (NOR) looked destined to win a record sixth title after leading the standings for the majority of the 2024-25 season, extending his World Cup record to 78 individual victories and 110 podiums with five more wins among 13 podium finishes during the campaign.
But after also adding three more World Championship gold medals to his collection - including both individual competitions – on home snow in Trondheim (NOR), the ‘King of Nordic Combined’ bowed out in dramatic style in what proved to be his final World Cup event in Oslo.
Riiber had already stunned the winter sports world by announcing at the end of January that he would retire at the end of the season, having been diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a chronic inflammatory condition in the digestive system that had been affecting his health all season and he will have to cope with for the rest of his life.
But it was a shock when that retirement came slightly earlier than expected. Riiber still led the World Cup standings by 71 points after finishing second behind Geiger (GER) in a thrilling Gundersen cross-country duel in Oslo.
But after finishing 21st on the hill – a rare experience for the best jumper the sport has seen - the next day, the Norwegian star revealed before the start of the Compact cross-country that it would be his final race, and he would not compete in the final two World Cup events in Lahti (FIN).
After moving up to eighth place early on, a fall cost Riiber nearly 10 seconds and thereafter he deliberately eased up and let the majority of the field overtake him as he took in the adulation of his home crowd, finishing 45th in his final competition.
Riiber declared “it felt so right for me to just stop here” and as he was hoisted on the shoulders of his Norwegian team-mates, Geiger – who had finished second behind maiden individual World Cup winner Ilkka Herola (FIN) - suddenly found himself with an unassailable lead going into the final events in Lahti.
If it was an unusual way to celebrate his first Crystal Globe, in his 10th season on the circuit, the 28-year-old’s victory in Oslo was his seventh of the campaign – two more than Riiber - and his 13th podium, matching the Norwegian’s tally.
Geiger will be among the favourites in a new season in which many athletes will sense an opportunity in the wake of Riiber’s retirement.
Johannes Lamparter (AUT), the only other man to win an overall title – in 2022-23 – since Riiber’s reign of dominance began in 2018, finished last season strongly with victories in the final two events in Lahti to finish third in the overall standings.
The 24-year-old can be expected to mount a strong challenge for Geiger’s crown, while Austrian team-mate Stefan Rettenegger, who struggled to seventh place last season after finishing runner-up to Riiber in 2023-24, showed signs of returning to his best form with two wins in the Summer Grand Prix series.
Julian Schmid’s consistency – the German had eight podium finishes last season without gaining the top spot – will ensure he remains in the mix, while Herola’s inspired finish to last season, following up his maiden World Cup win in Oslo with a second place in Lahti, may encourage the 30-year-old Finn that his time has come.
Could this be the year Jens Luraas Oftebro (NOR), arguably the best cross-country skier on the circuit who finished runner-up overall in 2022-23, steps out of Riiber’s shadow?
Kristjan Ilves (EST), who calls Trondheim home and has trained with the Norwegian team for several years, finished 10th overall last season after struggling with his jumping, following fifth-placed finishes the two previous years, but is another who believes Riiber’s exit has levelled the playing field for others.
The women’s World Cup also promises plenty of intrigue, with 2023-24 champion Ida Marie Hagen (NOR) seeking to regain the crown from Armbruster, who became the first German woman to claim an overall title.
That looked an unlikely scenario when Hagen won the first seven events of last season, making it 11 in a row including the surge of victories that took her to her first Crystal Globe in 2023-24.
But a disqualification for a suit infringement in Seefeld (AUT) not only cost Hagen points in the Compact – the second of the three competitions – but also ruled her out of the Gundersen on the final day of the ‘Triple’, when the winner is awarded extra points.
Armbruster’s victory there saw the 19-year-old take over the yellow bib as overall leader and Hagen slipped further behind after a costly fall on the first day in Otepää (EST).
When the German teenager beat Hagen in the tracks for the first time (above) on the final day in Otepää to earn her third win – and eighth podium - of the season, she established a lead that meant she could finish sixth and fourth in the final two events in Oslo to claim the title and break Norway’s dominance in the early years of the women’s World Cup.
Two-time overall champion Gyda Westvold Hansen (NOR), who won two World Championship golds and a silver in Trondheim, rediscovered her best form at the end of last season and dominated the final two World Cup events in Oslo.
But the champion in 2021-22 and 2022-23 will not compete in Nordic Combined this season after switching to Ski Jumping with the aim of competing at the Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina (ITA) in February.
While FIS is working hard to ensure female Nordic Combined athletes are able to compete in the 2030 Games, only the men will compete in the 2026 edition.
Finnish teenager Minja Korhonen (above), still only 18, has been tipped as a possible future champion and should approach the new season full of confidence after a successful Summer Grand Series in which she earned her first victory in Val di Fiemme.
Korhonen and 17-year-old team-mate Heta Hirvonen (FIN) will also compete in Ski Jumping, in addition to Nordic Combined events.
It will also be intriguing to see whether Yuna Kasai (JPN), who finished fourth overall last season, can build on her World Championship gold in the Mass Start from Trondheim.
Sadly she will not have Haruka Kasai, third overall in 2024-25, alongside her after her twin sister ruptured a cruciate knee ligament during the Summer Grand Prix finals in Predazzo in September, ruling her out for the coming season.
The season will kick off, as it has every year since 2015 – when strong winds forced the competitions to be rescheduled - in Ruka (FIN).
The men will tackle three events over three days, starting with an individual Compact on Friday 28 November, before a Gundersen the next day and a Mass Start – the only format where the cross-country comes before the ski jumping – on Sunday 30 November.
The women will begin their campaign the following week with a Gundersen on Friday 5 December as the World Cup moves on to Trondheim (NOR) for the weekend.
There will be one more round of events in Ramsau (AUT), from 18-20 December, before a brief pause for the festive break.
The action resumes early in the new year with individual Gundersens for both women and men in Schonach (GER) on 3 January and then a Team Sprint event for both on 4 January, the first of three successive World Cup weekends.
From there the circuit heads to Otepää (EST) from 9-11 January and then the following week to Oberhof (GER), returning as a World Cup venue for the first time since 2010.
At the end of January comes one of the highlights of the World Cup season, the ‘Triple’ weekend in Seefeld (AUT, above, where Geiger pipped Riiber last season), which will be a major form guide ahead of the Winter Olympics in Milano-Cortina (ITA) starting the following week.
The men will target Olympic medals in two individual Gundersens, one on the Normal Hill, the other on the Large Hill at Predazzo, with the cross-country sections taking place at nearby Tesero in Val di Fiemme. There will also be a men’s Large Hill Team event on 19 February, the last of the three Nordic Combined events at the Games.
The week after the Winter Olympics will bring a significant new chapter in Nordic Combined, with the first-ever men’s Ski Flying event on Friday, 27 February at Kulm, Bad Mitterndorf (AUT, below).
“I’m sure there will be some very long jumps,” said Franz-Josef Rerhl (AUT), owner of several hill records, when the competition on the HS235 hill was confirmed. It will be staged as part of an Individual Compact, with a 7.5km cross-country race to follow.
The World Cup season will conclude back in Scandinavia, in two of its traditional homes.
The penultimate round will see the women compete on the Large Hill in Lahti (FIN) for the first time, following a successful test in a World Cup event in Oslo last season.
The Lahti weekend includes a Mixed Team event for women and men on 7 March, while the final round in Oslo features a ‘World Cup final’ for women and men – both individual Gundersens – on the final day of the season on Sunday 15 March.
In another step towards gender equality in the sport, FIS will award equal prize money to male and female athletes at the end of the season in a new distribution system based on their overall standings.
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