Pioneer with a message

Very few people can claim to have made history twice in one day - but Gyda Westvold Hansen is certainly one of them. On 27 February 2021, the then 18-year-old Norwegian won the Nordic Combined World Championship title in Oberstdorf, making her the first-ever world champion in this discipline. She thus secured her personal double, as Westvold Hansen had also won the Junior World Championships in Lahti just 17 days earlier.

The victory in Oberstdorf was the just the start of an unprecedented series of successes. In the following World Cup winter of 2021/22, Westvold Hansen triumphed in seven out of eight races. It was an achievement that, amazingly, she would surpass a year later - with a perfect season and 10 victories in 10 World Cup competitions. Before the start of the 2023/24 season, she shocked the competition with her statement: “I want to be a better athlete than the previous year.”

The Norwegian caused a stir in other ways, too. At the World Cup final on the legendary Holmenkollen in Oslo in March 2023, Westvold Hansen and other athletes drew beards on their faces – a protest at the fact that the women's Nordic combined will also not be represented at the 2026 Olympic Games in Milan/Cortina. “We think it's pretty absurd that you actually have to have a beard to take part in the Olympic Games,” she had said earlier in the season. One thing’s for sure: whether through her sport or her activism, Westvold Hansen has certainly made her mark.