Niklas Malacinski Had to Stop Trying So Hard to Make the Olympics
Niklas Malacinski spent seven months doing nothing but eating, training, and sleeping. Just the relentless pursuit of one thing: the Olympics.
It almost cost him everything.
"I fully went into overtrain mode," the 22-year-old Nordic combined skier says, "I had a horrible start to the season. I was way overtrained. I wasn't happy. Nothing was working."
The irony wasn't lost on him. He'd chased the Games so desperately that he'd nearly chased himself out of them. It took his coaches pulling back the reins before things started turning around.
He made the team. On February 17th, in Tesero, Italy, Malacinski stood in the start gate at the Milano Cortina Olympics.
"It felt very big to be sitting on that bar."
Thirteen kilometers and one ski jump later, he crossed the finish line in 13th place, completing his Olympic debut. The mindset he gained along the way is the real takeaway.
Anyone Can Do It
Niklas grew up in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where Nordic skiing is deep within the culture. He was seven years old when Team USA's Todd Lodwick and Johnny Spillane brought their 2010 Olympic medals back to town, and he decided on the spot that he wanted one. Finnish blood helped, his mother is from the Arctic Circle, his father a ski instructor. Carpools, competitions, a tight-knit Nordic world that made the path feel possible from the very beginning.
"Pretty much anybody can be an elite athlete," he says. "Obviously, with a grain of salt. But that's what I convinced myself of, to allow myself to get to this stage. It all just comes down to how smart and how much you train. And I think the more important one is how smart you are with it."
That mindset got him to the World Cup circuit. It drove him to train harder than almost anyone around him. And then, in the lead-up to Milano Cortina, it turned on him.
Nobody Until You're an Olympian
The pressure of the Olympics is its own beast. Niklas describes two completely separate types of pressure: the kind you feel sitting on the start gate, and the kind you carry for the months leading up to it.
In the start gate, it's clean. "Nothing but pride and nervousness to perform at my absolute best. That type of pressure is usually good, and how athletes actually fuel strong performances.”
The buildup before that moment is something else entirely.
"Entirely anxiety and fear-based," he says. "All the what ifs. What if I don't qualify for this team? How am I gonna live with myself?"
For an American in a niche discipline like Nordic Combined, the quadrennial Games aren't just a competition. They're the only proof of legitimacy the broader culture seems willing to accept.
"Even if you're a World Cup overall champion, you're a nobody until you've won an Olympic medal or been to the Olympics," Niklas reflects. "We can call ourselves professional athletes all we want, but it doesn't mean anything until you're an Olympian."
He pauses.
"Versus NHL players…they can call themselves professional athletes, and everyone's like, yeah, 100%. They don't even need to go to the Olympics."
OG Skiing
There's also a misconception he's spent his career pushing back against.
"People think Nordic combiners are just worse ski jumpers and worse cross-country skiers," he says. "And that's painful."
Nordic combined isn't a compromise between two sports. It's built on the philosophy of versatility over specialization.
"It's OG skiing at its finest. Who can master it all.”
A lot of Nordic combined athletes, he explains, were extremely competitive against pure ski jumpers and pure cross-country skiers coming up. They love the sport for the adrenaline and the pain cave, the precision and the grit — all of it, together.
"We train more than the cross-country skiers and jumpers to master both," he says. "It's not that we're not ski jumpers or nordic skiers because we don't want to be. It's because we want to do it all."
"I didn't get the chance to prove myself in 2022," he says, referencing circumstances that kept him off that team. "And this was my time."
Fueled by Adventure
"I took it too far with the pressure of the Olympics. Nothing but eat, train, sleep from mid-April all the way until November. And that's taking it too far."
"I can't sit still," he admits. "I get anxious if I'm not training. Maybe that's part of why I was able to get to the Olympic stage. But the way I make it fun is through the adventure of traveling."
The week after his last World Cup, Niklas flew to Madeira Island off Portugal. Six days. One hundred kilometers of running. Nine thousand meters of vertical gain. The spring before that, he went surfing in Morocco and made his way to the highest peak in North Africa.
"It's never off-season," he says. "It's always just on to the next adventure."
Niklas proves that joy isn't the opposite of discipline. It fuels the process entirely.
A Nordic Combined Family
His sister Annika watched his Olympic debut from the stands. She's ranked 10th in the world and trains with the same relentless commitment. She held a sign that read "No Exception."
Women have never been allowed to compete in Nordic combined at the Olympics. Annika has spent years fighting to change that, and so far, the IOC has said no. Niklas sees his sister's advocacy, her visibility, and her frustration from the inside of a system that has let him in and shut her out.
"We had childhood dreams of being on an Olympic podium together," he said. He's optimistic for 2030.
If you asked him what advice he'd give his younger self, the kid in Steamboat who met his Olympic idols and decided to chase the dream himself, he answers without hesitation.
"Patience," he says. "I almost wanted it too bad, too early.”
He made it. He's an Olympian now. Now, his sister is knocking on a door that hasn't opened yet.
ABOUT THIS SERIES
I’m Amy Wotovich and I am on a mission to interview 100% of Team USA's 2026 Olympic and Paralympic athletes to create the most comprehensive mindset record of a single Games cycle. What do elite competitors actually believe about pressure, identity, failure, and joy? Niklas Malacinski is one of hundreds of athletes sharing their unfiltered answers. Follow the journey!
