In the space of a handful of hours, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) projected itself beyond the Tokyo Games, a source of "daily doubts" and "sleepless nights", according to its boss Thomas Bach.

Gathered behind closed doors in a palace in Tokyo for the 138th session, the members of the IOC unanimously validated the inclusion of ski mountaineering in the program of the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan, as an “additional sport”, tested without guarantee of being renewed.

This mountain discipline, consisting of climbing and descending off-piste routes on light skis fitted with sealskins, or with the skis in the bag if the slope is too steep, will be added to the fifteen Olympic winter sports.

Ski mountaineering will give rise to five events (sprint and individual race for men and women, mixed relay) to decide between 48 qualified, who will enter the overall quota of 2,900 participants in the Games.

A sport at home, in the Alps

Anxious to renew its audience, the IOC now leaves the host cities of the Olympic Games the possibility of proposing new disciplines, if they are both “spectacular” and “culturally relevant for the host country and beyond”. And ski mountaineering will be at home in the Alps, since European and especially Italian skiers monopolize its world podiums, even though its International Federation now has 37 member countries on four continents.

For the CIO, this discipline has the advantage of not requiring any construction or even a dedicated site, an important criterion since the body decided to limit the costly investments which are often dissuasive for the host cities.

The arrival of this sport for seasoned mountain dwellers, agile and physically as sharp as trail runners, also allows the body to follow the recent explosion in amateur practice, while ski mountaineering already represents “15% of the ski mountaineering market. snow and skiing ”, according to manufacturers' estimates cited by the IOC.

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