Waking up the morning after the final World Cup event of the season means no more competitions, training or responsibility for a couple weeks. The athletes are free, but it doesn’t necessarily feel that way. 

Following the four-month onslaught of extreme workouts, constant travel and high-intensity competition, the Nordic combined World Cup season came to a close Sunday with an event in Trondheim, Norway. 

For some, the next morning offered a dilemma. What now? 

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“I know that being an athlete is not my whole identity, but it kind of feels like that,” said Steamboat Springs Nordic skier Annika Malacinski, 22. “I prioritize training and competing and doing the sport of Nordic combined over anything else, so when I do training for those nine months, I’m on a schedule and in a routine. When all of a sudden I don’t have a training plan and I have free time to do whatever I want with the day, there is a little bit of anxiety. I don’t know what to do and I don’t know what my purpose is anymore.” 

Annika plans to spend some of her much deserved time off by traveling around Europe and visiting with friends before returning home to the U.S. for a while. Come May, she will begin to build up her endurance again and start training for next season. 

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Niklas Malacinski, Annika’s younger brother, found himself in a similar situation Monday morning. In years past, Niklas, 20, would jump right back into training mode immediately following the World Cup finale. 

This year, he has been prescribed by his coaches to take more time off in the offseason. Niklas’ compromise with himself is doing what he enjoys with his time off. He is allowing himself to go out and ski — but doing so for fun without a focus on training or improvement to his craft. 

“It really is necessary to take that two weeks and fully let your body and mind recover so you can go into training even more fresh,” Niklas said. “On the other hand, it is extremely hard for me to go from competition mode to almost trying to stay on the couch for a few days before going back to normal life.” 

During the World Cup season, Niklas says you feel fatigue after every weekend but the physical exhaustion really starts to set in approximately two-thirds of the way through the season. That’s also the point in the season where he starts longing for rest and the low-pressure environment of the offseason. 

Annika added that the burnout often depends on how the season is going. “Last year I feel like the whole season was so draining because of the results I was getting,” she said. “This season I was riding on a high the whole time.”

In Trondheim over the weekend, the Malacinski siblings competed together for the first and only mixed team event of the Nordic combined World Cup season. The U.S. placed ninth in the race, and with Alexa Brabec also competing, Steamboat skiers represented three of the four slots on the team. 

Sunday’s individual event represented the final competition of the season. Steamboat’s Niklas and Grant Andrews placed 18th and 48th respectively in the men’s competition. The women closed out their year with Annika taking 18th and Brabec right behind in 19th. 

According to Niklas, each Nordic combined skier representing the U.S. achieved personal bests this season — an incredible feat for the entire team. 

The Malacinski siblings were the top Nordic skiers on the World Cup to represent America for the men and women, respectively. It was the best season of each of their careers.

Niklas placed 25th in the men’s World Cup overall. He jumped 27 spots after finishing 52nd in 2023.  

“That was one of the biggest goals I had coming from last season was being consistently in the top-30 and finishing in the top-30 overall standings,” Niklas said. “Anyone who finishes the previous year in the top-30 overall standings gets their name on their athlete bib, which is like a credential. It was the tiniest little goal that means so much, just to have your name on a bib. That’s what I was shooting for from last season.” 

Annika went into the season with a very open mind and not too many results-based expectations. She finished the year with a career-high 14th in the women’s overall standings. 

Annika earned 14 top-20 finishes this season including a personal-best eighth place in Ramsau, Austria in December. Niklas earned his personal-best of 14th in Otepaa, Estonia, at the start of February. 

It was a huge step forward for Niklas, who said he gained a ton of experience this season racing among a more elite field of athletes on the cross country course. 

“It is a big leap to go from the back of the field or even mid-20s to the teens,” Niklas said. “It’s a completely different game and you are fighting for different spots. There are completely different tactics involved with race strategy.” 

The improvement in results across the board for the USA Nordic skiers can, in-part, be attributed to the organization’s new partnership with the Norwegian national team, Norges Hopplandslaget. 

Through this partnership, the U.S. Nordic athletes have a changed perspective on the sport and have fully immersed themselves in a new program that offers specialized training according to each individual’s weaknesses. 

Niklas said the specialization is what led to his breakthrough this year. 

“For me, on the cross country side of things, for example, my zone three was weak,” he said. “We worked on that a lot and then the same thing with technique. We did a lot of dryland technique rather than trying to fix things on the jump, which seemed to help a lot.” 

Annika is most thankful for the resources the Norwegian partnership provides. 

“I had amazing wax techs that were making my skis very fast,” she said. “A lot of people worked around me to make this season as successful as possible, which was a really big difference from previous years.” 

Beyond the training, Annika put special emphasis on her mental health this season. She used several techniques including hypnosis, therapy and journaling to maintain a positive mindset all seasons and intends to bring all of that into next year. 

It was a major stepping-stone season for the Malacinski siblings and USA Nordic. While they both begin their offseason rest, the itch to compete will surely creep back up and they will be back on World Cup snow this fall. 

“I felt like I was in turbo mode, like I had fire igniting out of me,” Annika said. “It felt so good to show up and give everything I can give and also be successful in that. Even going into the cross country portion, I felt so strong and that is an incredible feeling as an athlete, to show up and be able to give everything that you’ve put into the sport. All the training, all the hours and sweat isn’t for nothing.”