The IOC justified its decision with stark statistics. In a statement, it revealed: "Across most of the popularity indicators, Nordic combined ranked lowest among all Olympic Winter Games disciplines at Sochi 2014, PyeongChang 2018, Beijing 2022 and Milano Cortina 2026." 

The committee further elaborated that at the most recent Winter Games, it was "the lowest-ranked discipline in 11 of the 14 popularity indicators assessed,"