A Trendy Information to the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics

After 4 lengthy years, the Winter Olympics are again, and already, we have borne witness to very large wins, heartbreaking disappointments, and every little thing in between. The festivities kicked off six days in the past, on February 6, with the Opening Ceremony held at Milan‘s historic San Siro Stadium, one of many best sporting buildings on the planet. There, everybody from Mariah Carey to Andrea Bocelli carried out, setting the tone for the excellence to return.

The next day, medals have been doled out on the males’s snowboard large air closing, the place China’s Su Yiming returned to defend his gold medal from 2022 and American newcomer Ollie Martin obtained his first style of the Olympic occasion. (The latter competed with a damaged arm, ending up simply off the rostrum, and fellow first-time Olympian Kira Kimura from Japan took gold.) On the eighth, Lindsey Vonn, a legend on the planet of alpine snowboarding, competed in her first and largest occasion of the Video games, ladies’s downhill, a feat in and of itself after she ruptured her ACL simply days earlier than heading to Italy. Sadly, after an early crash, we’re unlikely to see Vonn compete in her different Olympic occasions, however her willpower will reside on as one of many largest storylines of the Video games, to not point out all of sports activities in 2026. The times that adopted noticed medals handed out on the ladies’s and males’s freeski slopestyle closing, champions topped on the curling blended doubles gold medal recreation, and a podium determined in ice dance, the place the U.S. duo of Madison Chock and Evan Bates battled in opposition to Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, in addition to France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.

That brings us to the current, February 12. Ten days of uncooked ability, elite competitiveness, and loads of unclaimed medals lie forward. At present alone, there’s ladies’s super-G on the docket, in addition to the ladies’s snowboard halfpipe closing, the place two-time gold medalist Chloe Kim seems to take house her third gold medal. In doing so, she’d grow to be the primary feminine snowboarder to win three gold medals and the second general. (Shaun White achieved it again in 2018 on the Pyeongchang Video games.) We even have first-time Olympic occasions, a buzzy few males’s (the NHL is again, child!) and girls’s hockey video games, and extra in retailer earlier than the Closing Ceremony on the twenty second.

To make sure you can take pleasure in the remainder of the Winter Olympics to the fullest, we have created a information to the Video games beneath. Info on the celebrities, newcomers, storylines, model companions, and extra is at your fingertips. Simply maintain scrolling.

The Fundamentals

This 12 months, the Winter Olympics returned to Italy for the primary time since 2006, when the Video games have been held in Turin. Earlier than that, you’d should go all the way in which again to 1956 to recollect the final time athletes gathered in Cortina d’Ampezzo, the place this 12 months’s video games are being held as we converse. (Occasions are literally being hosted throughout round 8500 sq. miles of Northern Italy in a complete of 13 venues, together with some within the trend capital of Milan, a five-or-so-hour drive from Cortina.) It is the most widespread Video games in Olympic historical past, one among many data set to be damaged between now and February 22. Extra factoids to know? At this 12 months’s Winter Olympics, a complete of 16 sports activities are represented, with 116 whole medal occasions handing out 735 whole medals. This 12 months, Norway will hope to defend its title as probably the most awarded nation within the historical past of the Video games. In 2022, the nation gained 16 gold medals and 37 whole medals, probably the most of any on the Beijing Video games. Norwegians maintain an all-time whole of 406 medals, with the Individuals a distant second with 330. To trace the present medal depend for every nation on the 2026 Video games, try CBS Sports activities’ tally. Or simply watch alongside because the world’s best sporting competitors unfolds on NBC and Peacock.

The Stars

All the winter-sport stars are on location someplace between Milan and Cortina proper now, whether or not they’re snowboarding, snowboarding, or skating. From younger expertise that is already breaking unimaginable floor of their respective fields to established athletes which may very effectively bid farewell to the Winter Olympics for good within the subsequent few days, everybody’s battling it out, able to threat all of it for an opportunity at that coveted gold medal. Meet among the names with probably the most fanfare beneath. Although, they are not the one individuals bringing pleasure to the Video games, notably, Ilia Malinin, Alysa Liu, Erin Jackson, Breezy Johnson, and extra.

Chloe Kim has been a staple of the snowboarding world ever for the reason that 2015 X Video games, when 14-year-old Kim gained gold in superpipe. Since then, she’s taken house six Winter X titles and two halfpipe world titles. Her Olympic debut got here on the 2018 Pyeongchang Video games, the place, at 17, she made historical past because the youngest lady to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal. (She truly certified for the 2014 Video games in Sochi however was deemed too younger to compete.) She’s additionally the primary athlete to win all 4 main snowboarding titles within the Olympics, Worlds, Youth Olympics, and the X Video games. Suffice to say, she’s a family identify on the planet of winter sports activities. Heading into the 2026 Winter Olympics, Kim has two gold medals and is looking for her third, which might add one other notch to her private document books. The duty will not be simple, although, particularly after she tore her labrum and dislocated her shoulder only one month earlier than the Video games. Following the damage, she took to Instagram Reels to share an replace. Regardless of every little thing, she expressed her willpower to compete: “I shall be good to go for the Olympics,” she stated. And for that, we’re all eternally grateful.

For those who, like us, have been devouring the brand new Netflix collection Glitter & Gold, then you definately’re in all probability very locked in to the world of ice dance, the place three skating partnerships lead the cost, one among which is made up of Madison Chock and Evan Bates, who’re representing the U.S. at this 12 months’s Winter Olympics for his or her fourth and maybe closing time. Their competitors? Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, in addition to France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron. Chock and Bates, nonetheless, are the three-time reigning World Champions and simply claimed a seventh U.S. Determine Skating Championship, their fifth nationwide title in a row. The duo, who started pair skating in 2011 and obtained married in 2024, positioned fourth within the ice dance occasion in Beijing in 2022 however nonetheless gained crew gold. This time round, they competed in all 4 ice dance occasions, taking house a silver ice dance medal and a gold medal for the crew occasion.

Along with not too long ago being named 2025’s fourth-highest-paid feminine athlete on the planet by Forbes, with earnings equal to $23.1 million, freestyle skier Eileen Gu can be one of many athletes we’re most excited to observe compete within the ongoing Winter Olympics. She’s the all-time chief in freeskiing World Cup wins for one, and the defending gold medalist in large air and halfpipe from the 2022 Video games in Beijing, the place she made historical past as the primary freestyle skier to win three medals at a single Video games. (Along with her two golds, she additionally earned a silver medal in slopestyle.) She was 18 on the time, setting a brand new document because the youngest Olympic freestyle snowboarding champion. She’s the last word triple risk—plus, Gu is an IMG mannequin, a Stanford scholar finding out quantum physics, and an IWC model ambassador. “I really feel this renewed sense of infatuation with snowboarding itself, with competing for the sake of sportsmanship and Olympic values, and with the artwork and craftsmanship that’s inherent to this sport,” she wrote on Instagram forward of the Opening Ceremony. “It doesn’t matter what outcomes comply with, I’m right here to have probably the most enjoyable and be totally current on this expertise.”

Lindsey Vonn’s comeback has grow to be the largest storyline of the Olympic season by far. There is not any query about it. She retired in 2019 after a number of accidents made it practically unattainable for her to compete within the sport she’s all the time liked and excelled in. A partial knee substitute modified all that, permitting her to mount a return for the historical past books, and there is no higher solution to finish a narrative like hers than with a gold medal. That is stated to be her closing ski season, and nothing about it has been simple. Just some days earlier than the beginning of the 2026 Video games, Vonn crashed in a race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, rupturing her ACL in her left knee. For anybody else, an damage like this one would put her out of competition for the remainder of the season, however not Vonn. “I have not cried. I’ve not deviated from my plan. I’ve been decided,” the 41-year-old stated in a press convention on February 4. “I’m not letting this slip by means of my fingers. I am gonna do it.” Vonn competed on the eighth, sadly crashing early on through the downhill race. Within the course of, she suffered a “complicated tibia fracture” that, whereas presently steady, would require a number of surgical procedures to repair, in accordance with her most up-to-date replace on Instagram.

You may be on the sting of your couch each time freestyle skier Alex Corridor begins a run over the course of the Winter Olympics—and that is a promise. The 27-year-old was born in Alaska and raised first in Zurich, the place he first placed on skis, after which in Park Metropolis, so it is no surprise snowboarding is virtually in his blood. Rely his medals for proof. On the Beijing Video games in 2022, he gained gold on his first run of the lads’s slopestyle closing, daring to tug a high-difficulty trick on his final soar. He is additionally a 10-time World Cup winner and a six-time X Video games gold medalist. At this 12 months’s Video games, he is competing in two occasions, slopestyle and massive air, providing viewers loads of possibilities to observe him flex his jaw-dropping abilities on the world’s stage. He already gained a silver medal within the first, with the second coming to a TV close to you on the fifteenth.

In any other case generally known as the undisputed GOAT of alpine snowboarding, Mikaela Shiffrin is the winningest ski racer of all time. The 30-year-old from Vail, Colorado, is the reigning World Champion and the primary alpine skier to document 100 Worldwide Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) World Cup wins. In 2014, she made her Winter Olympics debut in Sochi, Russia; she was solely 18 on the time, making her the youngest-ever Olympic slalom champion. The opposite two Olympic medals that decision her private trophy case house have been gained in 2018 on the Pyeongchang Video games, the place she gained gold in big slalom and silver in tremendous mixed. The 2022 Video games noticed Shiffrin document three DNFs (didn’t end) in occasions she’d beforehand medaled in, making Milano-Cortina a good greater deal as she works to get again to her earlier Olympic dominance. Over the course of the Video games, she’ll compete in big slalom, slalom, and crew mixed, alongside Breezy Johnson.

The Newcomers

As a lot enjoyable as it’s to root for the bigwigs of the Winter Olympics, it is simply as thrilling to see new athletes enter the largest and most acclaimed winter-sporting area. These are individuals who have labored their whole lives with one purpose in thoughts: to compete with the perfect of the perfect on the world’s stage. And we get to observe as they obtain their goals. It is an honor and a privilege, and one which we sports activities followers take very critically. Forward, study three of probably the most thrilling new names making their large debuts at this 12 months’s Winter Olympics.

Laila Edwards makes historical past on the 2026 Winter Olympics as the primary Black lady to compete for the U.S. ladies’s hockey crew. The 22-year-old is a ahead on the NCAA degree on the College of Wisconsin, to not point out one of many gamers who helped the U.S. nationwide crew dominate within the Rivalry Collection, an annual match between the U.S. and Canada, which passed off in late 2025. The 2 nations are by far the perfect on the planet of ladies’s hockey, competing in each gold medal match bar one (2006) for the reason that introduction of the game to the Olympics in 1998. America has solely gained twice, in 1998 and 2018, however the outlook is nice for 2026 to be subsequent after such a profitable run within the aforementioned match, particularly with Edwards on the roster, together with different stars like Hilary Knight, captain Kendall Coyne Schofield, Megan Keller, and goalie Aerin Frankel.

Philadelphia-born and Mount Holly, New Jersey–raised determine skater Isabeau Levito is simply 18, however she’s already emerged as some of the technically exact athletes on the ice. She gained gold on the 2022 World Junior Championships on the age of 15 with a program soundtracked by The Swan by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns. In it, her class and poise on the ice have been already on full show, traits she’s continued to hone within the years following. Her 2024 efficiency on the World Championships, some of the extremely regarded of her profession up to now, resulted in a silver medal and set her up for fulfillment forward of her Winter Olympics debut in Milan, the place her mom, who launched her to the game, is from.

Earlier than 31-year-old Mystique Ro turned one of many main athletes on the planet of ladies’s skeleton, she competed in monitor and subject, together with hurdles, sprints, and javelin, at Queens College of Charlotte in North Carolina. Based on an interview posted by the school’s athletics division, her entrance into skeleton wasn’t intentional; in truth, it occurred largely by likelihood. When her eligibility for monitor and subject ran out, Ro began on the lookout for one other sport to become involved in, becoming a member of one among her teammates at a mix for USA Bobsled/Skeleton. She did effectively sufficient on the camp to be invited again, upon which she was informed she was too small for her first-choice sport, bobsled. They instructed skeleton as a substitute. “I used to be terrified the primary run,” she stated. “That is insane—I am not doing this. However they satisfied me to present it one other attempt to simply chill out in it and be extra accepting.” Over time, she obtained extra comfy with it. “I simply swapped spikes,” she says. “Nonetheless doing the identical factor—pushing quick, working quick.” Final 12 months, on the FIL World Championships, Ro turned the primary American in 12 years to win a world medal in ladies’s skeleton, coming in second. In that very same competitors, she gained gold within the mixed-team occasion alongside Austin Florian, a brand-new Olympic occasion that she’ll be competing in on the 2026 Winter Olympics.

The Storylines

There is definitely no scarcity of buzz relating to this 12 months’s Winter Olympics. When the Video games are in session, everybody needs to tune in, not simply by watching the occasions unfold on TV but in addition by studying every little thing there’s to know concerning the athletes they’re rooting for. What’s everybody speaking about between bronze-medal video games and closing runs? We’re about to inform you. From the return of NHL gamers to Olympic males’s hockey to the brand-new occasions debuting from now till Closing Ceremonies, each storyline making headlines on the 2026 Video games is beneath.

Yesterday, the lads’s hockey portion of the 2026 Winter Olympics formally kicked off. The match will run all through the rest of the Video games, wrapping up on the twenty second with the all-important gold medal recreation. And for the primary time since 2014, NHL gamers will take part within the closing match. The announcement of their return got here a decade after they left, in 2024, bringing a renewed sense of pleasure across the sport on the Olympic degree. Throughout the Video games between 2014 and 2026, males’s Olympic hockey was largely performed by beginner gamers and professionals collaborating in leagues aside from the NHL, the game’s premier league. This time round, we’ll get to see the celebrities return to the ice, together with Canada’s Sidney Crosby, a two-time gold medalist and the captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and America’s Jack Eichel, a first-time Olympian and the middle for the Vegas Golden Knights. Different stars to observe are Canada’s Connor McDavid from the Edmonton Oilers, Nathan MacKinnon from the Colorado Avalanche, and America’s Auston Matthews from the Toronto Maple Leafs.

One of many largest triumphs of the Winter Olympics occurred earlier than the Video games even started. Following the 2024 Paris Olympics, the primary Olympic Video games with full gender parity, this 12 months’s Winter Olympics will likewise be largely gender balanced, with 47% feminine participation, making it probably the most gender-balanced Winter Olympics in historical past, in accordance with the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC). The U.S. crew can be virtually evenly cut up between women and men, with 232 whole athletes competing, 117 males and 115 ladies.

As thrilling as this all is, there stays inequality on this 12 months’s Video games, with one sport specifically being neglected of the competitors—not for everybody, although. Simply for girls. Nordic mixed is the one Winter Olympic sport with out a ladies’s occasion after the IOC denied its participation, deeming the game “not relevant for the ladies’s class,” in accordance with ESPN. Males’s Nordic mixed, a sport that blends cross-country snowboarding and ski leaping, has been part of the Winter Olympics since 1924, and within the Milano-Cortina Video games, it should have three whole occasions. The information of its denial by the IOC was particularly disappointing for American Nordic mixed skier Annika Malacinski, who took to Instagram following the information. In a poignant submit, she wrote, “At present, Olympic groups have been named. Desires have been confirmed. And as soon as once more, I’m not lacking due to my degree. Not due to my work. Not due to my dedication. I’m lacking as a result of I’m a lady.” The title of her assertion was particularly impactful: “As a result of equality ought to by no means have to attend one other 4 years.”

As a part of the IOC’s initiative to extend gender stability within the Winter Olympics, 4 present disciplines will now be prolonged to ladies’s athletes for the primary time, together with twin moguls, mixed-team skeleton, doubles luge, and particular person giant hill ski leaping. However these are simply 4 of the eight whole new occasions being launched on the Video games this 12 months. It will likely be the primary 12 months that athletes in ski mountaineering, or “skimo” for brief, can compete for an opportunity at Olympic glory. The game is a novel check of velocity and endurance, involving climbing up rugged terrain on foot after which instantly snowboarding down the identical mountain in as little time as attainable. Women and men will compete individually in fast-paced dash races lasting solely three minutes and in addition battle alongside each other in longer, endurance-focused blended relays lasting roughly half an hour. To spherical out the listing, a refreshed ski leaping medal occasion has been launched for 2026, known as tremendous crew.

The primary puck drop of the ladies’s Olympic hockey match passed off earlier than the Video games even formally started, with Italy’s group stage recreation in opposition to France kicking off the motion on February 5 on the just-finished-in-time Santagiulia Enviornment, adopted by a matchup between Canada and the U.S. The competitors could not begin quickly sufficient for followers of the Skilled Ladies’s Hockey League (PWHL).

For a reasonably new league—it launched on the primary day of 2024—the PWHL has seen exponential development in its first three seasons, with groups in eight cities—together with New York, Boston, Montréal, Ottawa, Seattle, Toronto, Minnesota, and Vancouver—and loads of damaged attendance data in its quick however candy historical past. It presently holds the worldwide attendance document for a ladies’s hockey recreation, with 17,228 individuals attending the matchup between the Montréal Victoire and the New York Sirens at Capital One Enviornment in Washington, D.C., in early 2026, however with an upcoming matchup between the Sirens and the Seattle Torrent being held at Madison Sq. Backyard on April 4, a venue that seats over 18,000 hockey spectators, that document may quickly be damaged.

With a lot buzz surrounding the league and its gamers—a few of whom shall be going through off in opposition to their PWHL teammates on the ice at Milano-Cortina—and the 2026 Winter Video games being the primary for the reason that PWHL was based, it is no surprise that so many are already tuning in for girls’s Olympic hockey. Sadly, the brand new area does not have fairly the capability of D.C.’s, so we cannot be seeing that attendance document damaged, however there’ll nonetheless be loads of pleasure surrounding the gold medal recreation on February 19.

The Should-See TV

Undecided what to observe over the subsequent 10 days? This is a really condensed model of the whole 2026 Winter Olympics calendar. As a lot as we might prefer to rot in entrance of our TVs all day watching occasion after occasion, there’s nonetheless work to be performed, households to care for, and chores to begrudgingly test off the to-do listing. So if you wish to partake within the Video games with out dedicating all of your time to it, attempt tuning in to the above competitions, from alpine and freestyle snowboarding to snowboard halfpipe, determine skating, and ice hockey.

The Model Companions

We’re trend individuals at coronary heart, so in fact, we could not write a information to the Winter Olympics with out speaking concerning the trend manufacturers which have signed on as official companions of the assorted nations and groups collaborating within the Video games. Beneath, we’ll speak concerning the large ones, like Ralph Lauren (Workforce USA) and Emporio Armani (Workforce Italia), in addition to others which are both returning to the Video games after a hiatus or coming again for spherical two after debuting in Paris again in 2024—Moncler and Goyol Cashmere, respectively. However these aren’t the one manufacturers shaping the athletes’ wardrobes in Milan and Cortina proper now. For instance, a current submit by @upnextdesigner, based by PR professional Albert Ayal, shed a highlight on Workforce Haiti’s uniforms, which have been designed by Stella Jean, who crafted them in Italy. Every bit was hand-painted, with the artworks impressed by the works of Edouard Duval-Carrié. Among the many different crew model companions are Le Coq Sportif for France, Lululemon for Canada, and each Adidas and Ben Sherman for Nice Britain.

It has been practically twenty years since American heritage model Ralph Lauren was named the official designer of the U.S. crew, and nonetheless, the designer drums up among the coolest, most sought-after Olympic gear on the planet. For the 2026 Video games, Ralph Lauren unveiled the Opening and Closing Ceremony parade uniforms in early December, promoting them on-line and in chosen shops within the U.S. and Italy. They offered out virtually instantly—from $75 T-shirts to just about $2000 outerwear. “The importance and sheer magnitude of dressing our nation’s unimaginable athletes—on probably the most dramatic stage in sport as they pursue their lifelong goals—is an honor that by no means fades,” David Lauren, chief branding and innovation officer at Ralph Lauren Company, stated in a press launch. “Our design philosophy has all the time been about creating goals and telling tales by means of fashion, and these uniforms, each timeless and trendy, mirror the eagerness, optimism, and relentless pursuit of excellence that embody the American spirit.” For the Opening Ceremony, the uniforms have been designed round an announcement winter-white wool coat, an American flag wool turtleneck, and tailor-made wool trousers in the identical snowy shade. On the finish of the Video games, American athletes will don uniforms impressed by classic ski racing kits, that includes color-blocked puffers, wool turtlenecks, and white utility pants.

Italians are all the time among the many finest dressed individuals on the planet, and their most revered athletes are hardly the exception to that precedent. Since 2022, Emporio Armani’s sport line EA7 has been the official technical clothing store of Italy’s Winter Sports activities Federation (FISI), a job it is persevering with to fill on the 2026 Winter Olympics. This 12 months’s athletes will put on a equipment designed to embody the sporting class and Olympic spirit of Emporio Armani by means of “clear strains, high-performance supplies, and distinctive particulars that categorical nationwide id and delight,” a launch states. All embody the phrase “Italia” on the again and particulars that includes the colours of the nation’s flag: purple, inexperienced, and white.

The 2026 Winter Olympics mark the return of Moncler as a provider, with the Italian model changing into the official sponsor of the Brazilian Olympic Committee for the opening and shutting ceremonies and the technical sponsor of the Brazilian alpine ski crew. The final time we noticed Moncler on the Olympics was in 1968, when the Video games have been held in Grenoble, France. “Returning to the Winter Video games means quite a bit to Moncler, not solely as a celebration of our heritage and the place we come from, but in addition as an announcement of what we stand for as a model, persevering with to push the boundaries of excessive efficiency and excessive fashion, now on the world’s largest stage for winter sports activities,” stated Moncler’s CEO and chairman, Remo Ruffini, in a press launch. “Being a part of this unimaginable second, in our house nation, by means of the power and coronary heart of Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, the Brazil Olympic Committee, and the Brazilian Snow Sports activities Federation, makes us much more proud.” Braathen, a Norwegian-born Brazilian World Champion alpine ski racer, is one among Moncler’s high model ambassadors and a specialist in slalom and big slalom. He, like the remainder of the Brazilian crew, shall be donning a set of down items through the two ceremonies of the Video games, designed by Brazilian designer Oskar Metsavaht, with the nation’s flag being a outstanding characteristic on the lengthy, floor-sweeping coats specifically.

Everybody, whether or not they’re normally invested in sports activities trend or not, is speaking about Goyol Cashmere’s uniforms for Workforce Mongolia. The model made an thrilling debut on the 2024 Paris Olympics and adopted it up two years later with an equally spectacular providing for the Winter Video games, for Workforce Mongolia’s athletes to put on each casually and through the official Opening and Closing Ceremonies. The designers behind them have been “guided by the noble mission of presenting Mongolia’s distinctive nationwide id and cultural heritage on the Olympic stage—a world image of unity and peace,” a submit on Goyol Cashmere’s Instagram acknowledged. “Somewhat than merely mixing conventional clothes with trendy design, this assortment goals to reintroduce the traditional Mongolian clothes tradition—an inseparable a part of our nice historical past and cultural heritage—to the modern world and share it on a world stage,” the submit continued. They drew inspiration from the apparel of the Nice Mongol Empire of the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, integrating practical skirt slits, raised collars, and closed overlapping fronts. Nice Mongolian cashmere was used to maintain the athletes heat within the Alps of Italy, and silk trimmings embroidered with conventional horn motifs added elegant, culturally wealthy accents.