Meanwhile there are hints that the mixed team parallel event, already removed from the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics programme following its disappointing showing at the Beijing 2022 Games, may face an uncertain future after its inclusion in the Courchevel Méribel 2023 Alpine World Ski Championships.

The new version of Alpine combined - which involves downhill or super-G and slalom - was devised by the FIS Athletes' Committee and involves the same format, but in a team form, which will make its debut at the Sankt Anton event from January 17 to 25.

The combined event first took place in the Winter Olympics in 1936, at Garmisch-Partenkirchen, when Alpine skiing made its first appearance at the Games.

It was dropped at the 1952 Winter Olympics but returned as a stand-alone Games event in 1988.

The IOC Executive Board said on June 24 this year that it was including men's and women's Alpine combined events in the Milan Cortina 2026 programme only "provisionally", adding that the events would be "subject to further review."

A final decision on Alpine combined competitions was expected to be made "no later than April 2023", with FIS being given time to finalise its competition format proposal and collect feedback from its Athletes' Commission.

An FIS spokesperson told insidethegames: "It is with great interest that we will test the new Alpine Combined format at the Alpine Junior World Ski Championships this season. 

"The format was proposed by the FIS Athletes' Commission and we think with combination of the athlete support and dynamic new elements, that this format could prove to be a positive development for the future. 

"There are still many steps to be taken to formally adopt the new format, but the test event this winter is a key step for the proposal."

Commenting on the new team format to L'Équipe, the FIS general secretary Michel Vion said during the final inspection of the course and facilities for the Courchevel Méribel 2023 Alpine World Ski Championships: "You could imagine that the national teams hire their best athletes, with a real downhiller and their best slalomer.

"We would see Beat Feuz in the downhill and Clément Noël in the slalom."

The team format would take place during major events but would not reappear in the World Cup.

The men's combined at the Beijing 2022 Games was won by Austria's Johannes Strolz, while the women's title went to Michelle Gisin of Switzerland.

The mixed team parallel event has not been made a part of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic programme due to the distance between the males' venue, in Bormio, and that of the female skiers in Cortina.

Included in 2022 for the second time at the Winter Olympics, the mixed team parallel slalom event pits teams of four - two men and two women per team - against each other in a series of side-by-side slalom races.

Each team member races a member of the opposite team and of the same gender down identical slalom courses.

At the Beijing 2022 Games, gold went to Austria ahead of Germany and Norway.

But Vion admitted to L'Equipe: "This event was not a hit either (at the Beijing Olympics) and in terms of audience it was not good."

Courchevel-Méribel may therefore be the last major event to offer seven different ski races - slalom, giant, super-G, downhill, combined, individual and team parallel.