While most NT athletes spend their days competing and practicing on the stadium turf or in the main gym, senior Anders Giese chooses to hit the slopes. At the age of 11, Anders Giese began training to be a Nordic Combined athlete. 

Nordic Combined is a sport that mixes ski jumping and cross-country skiing. First, the athletes begin with a ski jump and are rewarded with points for how stable they are and the distance they jump. These points are then tallied and the athletes with the best jumps get the longest head starts in the second half, the cross-country skiing race. The winner of the cross country event is then crowned as the winner of the whole event.

Anders Giese first was introduced to skiing by his father, Chad Giese, who was a two-time Olympic alternate, a Minnesota high school state champion, and a four-year collegiate cross country skier. The other half of the sport, ski jumping, was introduced to Anders Giese by one of his dad’s good friends, Olympic Gold Medalist Bill Demong. Demong won a gold and silver medal at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. He was the first American to ever gold in a Nordic event and was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2023. 

When Anders Giese was young, Nordic Combined felt out of reach. Him and his family initially thought the sport wasn’t very popular in Chicago, but then they came across the Norge Ski Club.

“Around 2012, the U.S. National Championships were held in Fox River Grove at the Norge Ski Club,” Anders Giese says. “That’s how we found out about ski jumping in the Midwest. Then in 2018, three of the four Olympians for ski jumping came from the Norge Ski Club. I was only around ten years old but I thought that it was really cool that people from Chicago were competing in a winter sport at the Winter Olympics. So the next year, I decided to try it.”

But Nordic began as just a side sport for Anders Giese; first and foremost, Anders Giese was a hockey player. It wasn’t until Covid that he really began to put his full effort into Nordic skiing.

“When the pandemic hit, I wasn’t allowed to play hockey anymore because it’s an indoor sport,” Anders Giese says. “So I started jumping more, and I got a lot better.Then I qualified for Junior Nationals in 2021, my first year eligible to do so.”

Giese went on to place top 10 in the competition, making him one of the best Nordic athletes in the country for his age.

Giese continued his training at the Norge Ski Club with his coach, Albert Gasenica. During the summers, the club creates a porcelain track for ski jumping, making it possible for Anders Giese to practice year-round. For Nordic Combined’s cross-country skiing aspect, Anders Giese mainly practices as a member of the boys cross country and the boys track team at New Trier, which helps his speed and endurance while on the snow.

“It’s really nice to have a team that I can come to in the fall and spring to train with,” Anders Giese says. “Training with people who are better than me is a really good way for me to get better.”

This team atmosphere is something that Anders Giese isn’t able to have in his Nordic career. Being the only junior Nordic athlete from Illinois, Anders Giese lacks the ability to join a  Nordic Combined team like many of his competitors from Minnesota, Utah, and Colorado can.

“I don’t really have a group of people to help me get there,” Anders Giese says. “It’s mostly just me and my family. My club is great, but they only ski jump, and cross-country skiing training is 60% of what I do.” 

Even without a team, Anders Giese keeps excelling in his craft. He received an invitation to the 2024 Youth Olympic Games in the Gangwon Province of South Korea. Anders Giese qualified for the games through the U.S. National Championships in December of 2023 and was selected as one of 30 boys sent to represent the U.S. The team met in Park City, Utah, for a week before heading west to South Korea. 

“I think [The Youth Olympic Games] was the coolest experience I’ve had in Nordic combined,” Anders Giese says. “I made friends from places like Austria, Italy, and Norway. It was really cool to sit at the top of the jump and not just hear English, and hear people talking in Norwegian, German and Korean. And the hospitality there was amazing, all of the volunteers were super nice.” 

Although he placed No. 28 at the Games, Anders Giese wasn’t very concerned about his performance. 

“I had a really good time,” Anders Giese says. “It was a really good competition, and I was young. So although I didn’t have the greatest performance, it was definitely a good experience for the future.” 

Since the games in Gangwon, Anders Giese has set his sights on his biggest goal yet: the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. 

“I think it’d be pretty cool to go to the 2034 Olympics in Salt Lake,” Anders Giese says. “I’ve spent a lot of time in Park City training, and so that’s almost a second home for me. It’d be incredible for my first Olympics to be on home snow.”

However, one thing stopping Giese from reaching his dreams is the sport itself. 

Although Nordic Combined is set to be a sport at the upcoming 2026 Winter Games, it could be its last time featured at the Olympics.

Nordic Combined is the only sport in the Winter Olympics that doesn’t include women. The sport, which is already one of the lesser-known games, is shrouded in controversy. The International Olympics Committee has yet to decide whether or not it will be included at all the 2030 Winter Olympics in the French Alps.

“Everybody in the Nordic combined community has been fighting for gender equality. We have it at the World Cup and World Championships, but not at the Olympics,” Anders Giese says, “So that’s kind of a struggle. There’s kind of this big question of, ‘will they add women’s Nordic combined to the Olympics, or will they cut men’s Nordic combined?’”

Regardless, Anders Giese is not giving up on Nordic. This year, he hopes to qualify for the Junior World Championships while continuing his success on the cross country and track teams at home. As high school comes to an end, Giese hopes to pursue cross-country skiing in college, as there are no collegiate level Nordic Combined teams.

“Nordic combined is in a little bit of a perilous place at the moment,” Anders Giese said, “But if it’s still in the Olympics in 2034, that’s my goal.”