About the Nordic Ski World Championships

The first World Championships in Nordic skiing were held in 1924. In the winter of 1924 an international ski week was held in the French resort Chamonix. This was such a great success that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) subsequently appointed the event to be the first official Olympic Winter Games. The IOC also decided to arrange Olympic Winter Games every four years, next time in 1928.

Similarly FIS decided that the relevant disciplines from the Winter Games in Chamonix should be recognized as the first World Championships in Nordic skiing. FIS also decided that the Olympic Winter Games in the future should be recognized as World Championships for the nordic ski disciplines. This was the situation up to and including 1984.

In the period 1924 to 1952 the World Championships was for men only, but from 1954 the World Championships were opened for women’s participation.

After 1924 the World Championships were held every year up to and including 1939. After the World Championships in 1939 World War II led to a break in the events until 1948, when the Olympic Winter Games were held in St. Moritz. From 1948 up to and including 1984, World Championships were held every two years, which meant that every second event was identical to the Olympic Winter Games.

In 1985 the World Championships were held in Seefeld in Austria, and after this year the World Championships in Nordic skiing have been held every two years in the odd years. From 1985 and onwards the World Championships have been a completely separated event from the competitions in the Olympic Winter Games.

As mentioned above, the Olympic Winter Games in the period from 1924-84 were also recognized as World Championships for (most of) the nordic ski disciplines. At the medal ceremonies for the Olympic Winter Games, World Championship medals were also awarded, in addition to the Olympic medals. However, this official status of also being a World Championship event was only followed for events in cross country skiing and ski jumping - it was not the case for nordic combined events. Only in the Olympic Winter Games in 1984, all three nordic ski sports (cross country, nordic combined and ski jumping) were recognized as also being World Championships.

In our lists of champions, medal standings etc. we have followed the above outline of which events count as World Championship events. There is some disagreement about this but by using the above mentioned events we align our data with the official FIS database and their general outline of World Championship history.