Manuel Faisst was born to be a Nordic combined skier. His father both competed and trained in the sport and so Faisst junior skied down his first slope aged four. An international competitor since the age of 16, he is a former Junior World Champion, with three gold medals, a silver, and a bronze to his name. Since 2011, he has been a constant presence at the World Cup, winning several stages and since 2019, finishing in the overall top ten.

Faisst was born in January 1993 and hails from Furtwangen im Schwarzwald, a city in Germany’s Black Forest region. He made his international debut during the 2009/2010 season, with a top-ten finish at the Junior World Championships in Germany and two World Cup stages in France and Norway. The following season, he narrowly missed out on a junior world medal, finishing fourth in the 5km race. The season after that, he cracked it, winning 10km silver and team bronze. However, his real breakthrough came at the next championships, in January 2013, when he took gold in 5km, 10km, and team races. A clean sweep that established him as one of Nordic combined skiing’s true emerging talents.

Perhaps surprisingly, Faisst has largely forgone competing in senior World Championships, preferring to prove himself in the World Cup, a longer tournament held to be the sport’s toughest. With numerous podium finishes to his name, in 2019 he won his first stages, helping him to his first top-ten finish, a ranking he repeated the following year. Greater success lies ahead for this young athlete.