Yesterday’s announcement of changes to next year’s World Cup schedule came as a dramatic surprise to the cross-country skiing community. But the story behind those changes is just as interesting as the changes themselves. Lars Johansen, the Swedish delegate to the FIS (International Ski Federation) competition committee described how the historic changes came about. “I was sitting glumly in my Cortina hotel room. In nine days, I was due to give my final report to the annual meeting of the FIS’s cross-country skiing competition committee, and the news wasn’t good. Soon the good feelings and sugar buzz of the winter Olympics would be over,” said Johansen, “and the hard choices of what to do next would need to be resolved.”
Johansen was referring to the task the committee had directed him to address, which was the thorny issue of traditional cross country skiing’s sagging television ratings. The preliminary numbers from the Olympics were very good—but they always were—however the ratings for the regular season World Cup competitions continued to disappoint. There has been a long steady decrease in television viewers for traditional cross-country compared to other Nordic sports, and if the pattern continued, it would become an existential threat to the continued viability of traditional cross-country World Cup racing. Without the money associated with strong viewership, a business model simply doesn’t exist for traditional cross-country to continue on the World Cup circuit.
The data was now in and the results were unmistakable. The numbers weren’t bad, but biathlon continued to kick traditional cross-country’s butt. In fact, biathlon had surged to become the most watched winter sport in Europe, and despite the U.S. cross country team’s success in recent championships, North American viewership wasn’t increasing nearly fast enough to offset the decline in European viewers. The problem is that there are only so many advertising dollars to go around, and advertisers go for the biggest bang for their buck. The limited pool of existing advertisers were sinking their budgets into biathlon. Eyeballs were glued to biathlon, and traditional cross-country had become an afterthought. Biathlon’s dominance was becoming hard to take, and the Nordic competition committee wanted answers. Something had to be done.
The competition committee’s meeting process is well established. During every World Championships and Olympics, the Committee gathers to discuss changes to race formats and other issues which need to be addressed. It is a logical way to conduct business. Most of the governing body’s members are already in town for events, so it makes sense to get everyone together while officials are already there. The routine goes something like this; delegates are free to watch live events as they choose, after events and on off days; they meet to discuss business.
However, this year while the format was the same, the mood was very different. This year the mounting crisis facing traditional cross-country was the main topic and it was definitely not business as usual. “What were we going to do about the falling viewer ratings? That was the only agenda item.” The committee had already had two meetings, and they did not go well. “We batted around a bunch of tweaks to competitions to make them more attractive,” said Johansen. “But the reality was that we all knew these minor changes wouldn’t make much of an impact. I had been directed to submit new fresh ideas and really, I didn’t have much. We were looking at adding mixed relays to the Olympics and continuing them more prominently into the world cup schedule, but I knew that it was just nibbling around the edges. We needed something dramatic, something that would serve as a wakeup call to the world that we were not the stodgy older brother of biathlon, but that we could be the cool kid as well.”
“But I was totally stuck, and the committee wasn’t happy, though I think they knew that there really wasn’t much to be done. We were probably just going to have to accept our fate and continue to struggle with declining viewership and therefore declining revenue. I was fully prepared to be the one to deliver the bad news, knowing that it would mean that I would probably lose my job.”
However, as it turned out, serendipity intervened and Johansen came up with a groundbreaking idea that has rocked the Nordic world and put traditional cross-country back into the spotlight, hopefully for good.
“It was Wednesday, and my next update was due the following day. To be totally honest, I was pretty depressed. I didn’t even go the Sprint races that day, instead I watched them from my hotel room. I wasn’t really even paying much attention to the competition, but then I saw what now has become a worldwide phenomenon. The dog everyone now knows as Nazgul strayed onto the Sprint qualifying course. At first, I was annoyed by this. How could anyone be so careless with their animal I thought? Someone could have been hurt.” Johansen continued that, “the day progressed like any other day, and I mustered the energy to go watch the Sprint finals live. By the time I returned to my hotel room every social media channel was blowing up over this dog. I couldn’t believe it. In 30 seconds, this canine achieved more media notoriety than our hard working athletes had in years. I was dumbfounded but didn’t really know what to make of any of this other than that it was an interesting Olympic footnote.”
Johansen had bigger fish to fry than the curious case of a stray dog. He staggered into Thursday’s meeting empty handed, and admittedly dejected. “The discussion began and everyone turned to me for my suggestions. I had nothing. It was as you Americans like to say, the sound of crickets. So, just to fill the dead air, I asked if people had seen the dog who was now a social media star, of course everyone had. For the next half hour, we all talked about the dog and how amazing it was that it had gone viral. Slowly the discussion began to return to what suggestions I had to address our issue; that’s when the lightning bolt struck.”
“How about adding skijoring as an event, I said? It popped into my head and came out of my mouth before I even had time to think about it, though I did have the common sense to put it out there half joking just to see what the reaction would be. To my surprise, no one laughed. In fact, everyone seemed pretty interested.” (To the uninitiated, skijoring is the sport of a dog harnessed to a cross-country skier pulling the skier along as the skier skis, usually freestyle. The result is incredibly fast skiing).
“I then pulled out my phone and showed the committee that there had already been over 15 million views on X of the dog crossing the finish line. That’s more than the number of viewers we had for the women’s Sprint finals in the United States!” It seemed to be the perfect solution in the right moment. Skijoring is wildly popular in Scandinavian countries. On any given winter’s day ski trails are crowded with skijorers, and even if you don’t care about skijoring, most people love dogs. But there were a few doubters in the room, surprisingly mostly from the nontraditional skiing countries. So, I did a quick Google search of how much money is spent in the United States on dog care and put the result on the conference room’s television screen. Over $150 billion was the answer. The room went silent. No one could argue with those numbers.”
Johansen continued, “that’s when my brain really started rolling. I put out this idea; imagine the image of an exhausted skier and dog crossing the finish line together, both collapsing to the ground embracing each other. The images alone would be better than all of the advertising we could spend. I quickly constructed an AI generated image of a finishing ski racer lying in the snow collapsed with a dog next to her. The doubters immediately went silent, everyone was in awe, the potential power of the imagery was more than anyone could have imagined, and it was impossible to argue against it. By then, I had gathered enough momentum and confidence to close the deal. I said, imagine joining the power of the most demanding athletic competition in existence with humankind’s innate love of animals into one package. I paused for a moment and looked at the delegates to let the statement’s impact set in. We have been handed the greatest promotional opportunity in sport history. No one disagreed.”
But this was just the beginning. “From there, things started moving pretty fast. We immediately brought in a consultant on Zoom to help us understand possible formats and logistical issues. Krag Stellon from the Finnish contingent had contacts in the sled dog world (which is a completely different discipline but there is crossover in how the dogs are trained), and we immediately arranged a meeting with his friend Andrew Steffson to discuss if such races were even possible. After a full day of discussion, we had outlined possible formats. There were also discussions with independent skijoring associations to roll their races into the World Cup calendar and combine efforts with those independent associations. The committee was so excited that we all agreed to skip watching the remaining competitions live and focus on our work. So, with the men’s 50k race on the television in the background, we worked out our format.
For the next race season, we decided that there will be three skijoring events added to the calendar as demonstration events. The format will be broken down into three distinct categories. First there will be the combined event which will work like the skiathlon. Racers will ski 10 kilometers freestyle, then they will come into the exchange station where they will be harnessed to their dog to ski another 10 kilometers. The first to cross the finish line wins.
The next event will be the individual 10 kilometer race where the dog and skier will start in a time trial fashion.
The third event will be the mixed relay. There will be one male and one female skier. One skier will ski a five kilometer Classic leg, and they will then tag off to the skijoring skier who will ski five kilometers Freestyle to the finish. Teams may choose which gender skier they wish to have ski each leg.
“For next year there will be 200 world cup points available for each skijoring race. This is twice the normal race point value which will serve as incentive for racers to partake in the new format. For 2027-28, we plan on there being one skijoring event every other weekend, with points being assigned the same value as traditional races. Skiers will not be compelled to skijor race, however, if they don’t, they will lose valuable points and hurt their Overall cup rankings.”
“All dogs will be provided by neutral trainers with kennels based in Finland and Sweden. For North American races, dogs will be transported by plane to the venues. The dogs will be subject to the same doping control protocols as their human companions. Teams will be assigned a group of dogs which they will work with throughout the season. For the first year, trainers will be assigned to teams. After that, teams will be free to hire their own dog coach/trainer, similar to the way wax technicians work, but the dogs themselves will always come from neutral kennels. This way we will avoid a dog arms race similar to what we see with ski preparation.”
However, there were still a lot of details left to consider. “We contacted our representatives from every voting nation, and the immediate response was overwhelmingly positive. Then we decided to put out our findings for our corporate liaisons to reach out for sponsorship.
The response has already been overwhelmingly positive. “Our business representatives and lawyers have reached out to companies in the pet supply world, and the response has been huge. We already have a multi-year, multimillion dollar contract with Purina (pending legal reviews), as the principal sponsor for the skijoring races. We also have a seven figure sponsorship deal with a North American chain of dog kennels. Zoetis, the world’s largest canine prescription pharmaceutical company has also agreed to a multi-year, multi million U.S. dollar agreement. The inquiries from potential sponsors haven’t stopped since we made the announcement. Companies ranging from dog clothing accessories, to training devices, to grooming products, have been contacting us nonstop. It has simply been amazing.”
“We’ve run preliminary viewer focus group studies and have had an over 85 percent positive response. That’s the highest focus group response we’ve had in the history of running such studies on any race concept.”
“When you stop to think about it, it’s really a no brainer, and it’s kind of embarrassing that we never thought of it before. Everyone loves dogs, and the cross-promotional tie-ins are limitless.”
“My view on the entire Nazgul situation has completely changed. I have to admit that at first I was a little frustrated and angered by what happened. But now I see it as the serendipitous confluence of an entirely new chapter in competitive cross-country skiing—something that could actually save cross-country as a televised sport. After having had some time to reflect I’m willing to bet that in five to ten years, skijoring audiences will greatly surpass human only powered racing. It’s really remarkable when a chance circumstance comes along at just the right time and changes history. Now we will let the races begin!
THIS STORY WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON APRIL 1, 2026
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