The United States’ Ross Tester competes during the Freeride World Tour finals Verbier Xtreme on the Bec de Rosses mountain above the Swiss Alps resort of Verbier, Switzerland, on March 20, 2025. (AFP-Yonhap) Nordic combined, the event combining ski jumping and cross-country skiing, has been removed from the sports program for the 2030 French Alps Winter Olympics.The International Olympic Committee approved the 2030 program at its Executive Board meeting on Monday. Nordic combined was part of every Winter Olympics since the inaugural Games in 1924 but has long faced uncertainty due to limited global popularity, domination by a handful of countries and the absence of a women's event through the 2026 Winter Olympics."The sport ranked last across most popularity indicators from the 2014 Sochi Games through the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games," the IOC said, adding that only five National Olympic Committees have won Nordic combined medals across the past four Winter Olympics.The IOC said the sport will remain on the program for the 2028 Winter Youth Olympic Games and could return for the 2034 Winter Olympics through its "Fit for the Future" evaluation process.The 2030 Games will instead add ski and snowboard freeride and "Synchro9," a nine-skater synchronized figure skating event. The IOC said freeride has grown rapidly in popularity, particularly among younger audiences, while synchronized skating continues to attract strong spectator interest.Snowboard parallel giant slalom, another discipline that had faced questions over its Olympic future, will remain on the 2030 program. The event has produced two of South Korea's biggest Olympic achievements in snow sports, with Lee Sang-ho winning silver at the 2018 Winter Olympics and Kim Sang-kyum earning silver at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games.The IOC also said the 2030 French Alps Games will be the first Winter Olympics to allocate athlete quota places equally between men and women, with 3,046 competitors expected, including 1,521 men and 1,525 women.(This article was produced with the assistance of AI. — Ed.)