Cross country running will not become a Winter Olympic sport. That is the verdict, according to a report from Japan’s Kyodo News published Sunday, ahead of an International Olympic Committee Executive Board meeting that begins Wednesday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Citing a source “close to the matter,” Kyodo reported that IOC President Kirsty Coventry’s leadership team has decided against expanding the Winter Games to include cross country running or cyclo-cross. The current Olympic Charter rule, which limits Winter Games sports to those held on snow or ice, will stay in place.
The decision is a setback for World Athletics and the Union Cycliste Internationale, the two governing bodies that have spent years lobbying for their fall and winter disciplines to be added to the Winter program. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe had publicly backed the cross country bid for the 2030 Winter Games. Cross country has sat in an awkward Olympic spot for a long time.
It is one of the oldest forms of competitive running, with a World Championships dating back to 1973, but it has not appeared at any Olympic Games since the 1924 edition in Paris. Recognition at a Winter Games would have brought broadcast attention, federation funding and competitive pathways back to a discipline that has produced many of distance running’s biggest names.
Eliud Kipchoge, Joshua Cheptegei and Letesenbet Gidey all came up through cross country before becoming Olympic track and marathon champions.
Behind the scenes, the fight has been about money as much as snow. Adding cross country and cyclo-cross would have given World Athletics and the UCI a share of the television revenue the IOC distributes from the Winter Games. According to reporting by Rich Perelman of The Sports Examiner on the Kyodo leak, the winter-sport federations were not willing to share.
The bigger story from the leak may be what is happening to the summer program. The Olympics has ballooned to a record 36 sports for Los Angeles 2028. Kyodo reports that figure will be cut for Brisbane 2032 because of financial concerns, and that even surviving sports could lose disciplines or specific events.
The trend toward a bigger Games has been steep. The 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 editions all featured 21 sports. By Sydney 2000, the count had reached 28. Tokyo 2020 climbed to 33. Paris 2024 had 32. Los Angeles will host 36, after the local organizing committee added baseball and softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash to a roster that already included skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing.
Brisbane originally agreed to host 28 sports in its bid, mirroring the 2016 Rio program. That commitment now looks like the floor, not the target.
The cuts fit with Coventry’s “Fit For the Future” program, announced last September, which set up four working groups covering commercial partnerships, the Olympic program, the protection of the female category, and the Youth Olympic Games. Coventry took the IOC presidency earlier this year after defeating Sebastian Coe and a crowded field of candidates.
In a news conference in March, the Zimbabwean leader hinted that hard choices were coming. “Some people will not be happy,” she said.
The Olympic marathon is not part of the conversation about cuts. It remains a centerpiece event of the Summer Games, and USATF has already set its qualifying standards for the 2028 Trials. The Kyodo leak also indicated that the IOC’s Esports Commission has been put on hold.
Under former president Thomas Bach of Germany, the IOC had pursued an Olympic Esports Games in partnership with the National Olympic Committee of Saudi Arabia. That 12-year agreement was canceled in October 2025.
The new leadership appears to be stepping back from the effort entirely. Separately, the IOC’s previously announced policy of a one-time SRY gene screening for athletes competing in the female category will go ahead as planned, starting at Los Angeles 2028. That decision was made public in March and is not affected by the leaked reports.
The IOC Executive Board is expected to address the program changes at a news conference Thursday. Until then, the Kyodo source remains unnamed, and the IOC has not publicly confirmed any of the details.
