The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced on Tuesday that freeride skiing and snowboarding events, as well as synchronised skating, will be on the programme for the 2030 Winter Olympics, while dropping Nordic combined.
The Games, due to be held in and around the French Alps, will also be the first Winter Olympics to achieve gender parity among athletes with a total of 3 046 participants expected across 126 events.
After confirming last week the continued inclusion of ski mountaineering that made its Olympic debut at Milan-Cortina Winter Games in February, the IOC has added new disciplines affiliated with existing Olympic international federations.
Meeting in Lausanne on Tuesday, the IOC Executive Board opted for freeride —- a discipline involving lines and tricks performed in powder snow on skis or snowboards —-following a long lobbying effort that began thirty years after the sport's first competitions.
Synchronised skating which held its first world championships in 2000 will introduce an Olympic audience to routines performed simultaneously by nine skaters.
However, Nordic combined is being dropped, despite having been part of the Olympic programme since the inaugural Winter Games in Chamonix in 1924 and remaining the only discipline restricted to men.