Throughout this 12 months’s twenty fifth Winter Olympics, over 3,000 athletes will thrill a worldwide viewers in Milan-Cortina, Italy. Snowy sports activities will take middle stage for the primary time in 4 years after followers final loved the Video games in Beijing, China.
This time round, the Winter Olympics will boast a panoramic Italian backdrop as they’re being collectively hosted by town of Milan and the famend mountain resort city of Cortina. The 116 occasions throughout 16 sports activities within the two Italian cities embrace snowboarding, snowboarding, determine skating, bobsledding, ski leaping, and hockey.
Whereas the USA is sending a stellar group, different nations’ sports activities stars are going to present People competitors for the coveted gold, silver and bronze medals.
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Learn on to search out out extra about 17 prime athletes to look at on the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics!
1. Mikaela Shiffrin—U.S.
Thought-about the best Alpine skier of all time, Colorado native Shiffrin, now 30, goes to her fourth Olympics. Shiffrin has been dominant internationally with 107 whole World Cup wins, however her Olympic profession has been spotty with three medals. She received gold in her Olympic debut on the 2014 Sochi Video games within the slalom occasion, turning into the youngest lady to take action. Shiffrin took residence two medals in PyeongChang in 2018, profitable gold within the girls’s large slalom and silver within the girls’s super-combined. Nevertheless, she left Beijing 2022 with no medal and shall be hungry for one in Milan.
Picture by MARCO BERTORELLO on Getty Photos
2. Eileen Gu—China
Gu, 22, who was born in San Francisco however controversially competes for China, grew to become a star in freestyle snowboarding on the 2022 Olympics. The high-flying skier secured gold medals in huge air and halfpipe and a silver medal in slopestyle and followers can’t wait to look at her in Milan.
Picture by Angel Martinez on Getty Photos
She informed Vogue Hong Kong, “I’ve at all times mentioned that my aim with snowboarding has been to make use of the game as a way to unfold the spirit of athletics. And it means resilience, it means sportsmanship. It means ardour and pleasure and self-discipline—significantly for younger girls, and significantly in excessive sports activities the place younger girls are underrepresented.”
3. Stefan Kraft—Austria
The ski jumper, 32, is among the most acclaimed of all time. The Austrian grew to become the all-time main factors scorer in FIS Ski Leaping World Cup historical past, breaking the document in Falun, Sweden, in November 2025. Kraft received a group gold medal in Beijing, however he has not but received a person Olympic medal. He is described his ski-jumping type as “fashionable and straightforward”—regardless that it seems to be scary and laborious!
Picture by FREDRIK SANDBERG on Getty Photos
4. Chloe Kim—U.S.
Will America’s snowboarding queen reign supreme in Milan? After struggling a labrum tear in her shoulder throughout a coaching run, it was questionable if she’d even be capable to compete. However on Jan. 22, 2026, Kim has formally certified—and as of proper now—she’s going to be capable to characterize Staff USA on the 2026 Winter Video games. At age 17, Kim was the youngest lady to win an Olympic snowboarding gold medal on the 2018 Winter Olympics. Kim additionally grabbed the gold medal in halfpipe on the 2022 Beijing Video games.
As Girls’s Well being reported, Kim confronted burnout and nearly stop the game. However as she informed the web site, remedy helped her with psychological well being and snowboarding. “The aim proper now’s simply to like each step of the way in which,” she mentioned.
If Kim is ready to compete and he or she wins one other gold medal in Milan, she’s going to grow to be the primary lady ever to “three-peat” within the girls’s snowboard halfpipe occasion.
Associated: Olympic Hopeful Chloe Kim Suffers Harm That May Preserve Her From Making Historical past
5. Marco Odermatt—Switzerland
Odermatt, 28, has been dominant in World Cup alpine snowboarding and goes for the gold in Milan. Odermatt started snowboarding when he was simply two years previous, accompanied by his father on the slopes. Each of his dad and mom have been gifted skiers, and Odermatt thanks them after each race, as nbcolympics.com reported.
Picture by NurPhoto on Getty Photos
He received large slalom on the 2022 Olympics. “I am an athlete who goes all in. For me that is the very best tactic,” the Swiss star informed RedBull.com.
6. Ilia Malinin—U.S.
America’s males’s singles determine skating “Quad God” Malinin, 21, is thought for his unbelievable quadruple jumps. On Jan. 10, 2026, Malinin received the boys’s title on the 2026 U.S. Determine Skating Championships—marking his fourth consecutive nationwide championship. The Virginia native can be a two-time world champion (2024-2025). The truth is, since 2023, he’s undefeated in each main competitors! Malinin hopes to land seven quads in his 2026 Olympics lengthy program.
Monumental Sports activities
7. Johannes Hosfløt Klæbo—Norway
Picture by VESA MOILANEN on Getty Photos
Cross-country snowboarding will not be an enormous sport within the U.S., however it’s in Europe, and Klaebo, 29, is taken into account the greatest cross-country skier of all time. Klæbo received three gold medals on the 2018 Winter Olympics and is the favourite to take extra in 2026. In a weblog, he wrote about how a lot he loves his sport: “Cross-country snowboarding was what moved my soul, and I owe this to my spirit, my household, and the instructors I used to be fortunate sufficient to satisfy.”
8. Lindsey Vonn—U.S.
After a five-year retirement and partial knee alternative, Lindsey Vonn formally certified for her fifth Winter Olympic Video games on Jan. 22, 2026. The 41-year-old has received a complete of three medals in her first 4 outings. Vonn shared her pleasure with CNN. “I really really feel rejuvenated and youthful [with] this loopy journey,” she mentioned.
Associated: Lindsey Vonn Debuts Spectacular Physique Transformation: ‘Aim Attained’
9. Sidney Crosby—Canada
Picture by Andre Ringuette/4NFO on Getty Photos
The 38-year-old NHL star is among the gifted males main Staff Canada on the upcoming Winter Video games. Crosby—lovingly nicknamed “Sid the Child”—can be identified for being captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins. However on the Olympics, he’s competing for his native Canada—even scoring the “golden aim” in additional time in opposition to Staff USA to place his nation on the prime in 2010. At Sochi 2014, Crosby led his group to a different gold medal. After lacking the 2018 and 2022 Winter Video games, Sid the Child is fired up for Milan!
10. Erin Jackson—U.S.
Picture by Christian Kaspar-Bartke – Worldwide Skating Union on Getty Photos
Now 33, Jackson made historical past on the 2022 Beijing Video games after turning into the primary Black lady to win a Winter Olympic gold medal in a person sport, pace skating. The Florida native—whose profession took off after her mother chatted up coach Renee Hildebrand at Waffle Home—triumphed within the girls’s 500-meter pace skating occasion! “It takes quite a lot of dedication and perseverance and sacrifice,” Jackson has mentioned of her Olympic journey, which is able to proceed this February.
11. Alysa Liu—U.S.
Picture by China Information Service on Getty Photos
Girls’s determine skater Liu, 20, could have misplaced the U.S. 2026 determine skating title to her Olympics teammate Amber Glenn, however she’s nonetheless one to look at on the Winter Olympics. Since popping out of retirement final 12 months, Liu received the 2025 World Championships in Boston. She competed within the 2022 Olympics—ending sixth individually, however serving to Staff USA win the bronze. “I am so excited to go on the stage to point out me off,” the California lady mentioned after making the 2026 Olympics group. “My hope is to get seen—not even simply my skating—simply me.”
Associated: Who Is Alysa Liu? Contained in the Lifetime of America’s Prime Girls’s Determine Skater
12. Bruce Mouat—Nice Britain
Picture by JUSSI NUKARI on Getty Photos
Who can neglect curling? The gradual, unusual sport through which group members slide stones on a sheet of ice in direction of a goal grew to become an Olympic cult sensation starting with the 2002 Salt Lake Metropolis Winter Video games. Mouat, 31, is the top of the Scottish males’s curling group that was chosen to characterize Staff Nice Britain in Milan. He plans to compete in each the Males’s Staff occasion and the Blended Doubles. The steely-eyed roller skippered his squad to world championship titles in 2023 and 2025. Mouat beforehand received a silver medal at Beijing 2022 within the males’s group curling occasion.
Mouat opined to the Each day Mail that curling is “chess on ice….to assume in your ft is vital. I discover it thrilling.” The Scotsman got here out as homosexual in 2014 and mentioned that openness has helped him grow to be a good higher roller!
13. Elana Meyers Taylor—U.S.
The bobsled athlete, 41, is a research in perseverance, having competed for almost twenty years. A local of California, Meyers Taylor has earned a complete of 5 Olympic medals over 4 Olympics. The three-time silver and two-time bronze medalist is on the lookout for her first gold in her fifth Video games this February.
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Meyers Taylor’s exuberant spirit has received many followers, and he or she’s shared her ideas on bobsledding. She mentioned, “When bobsled goes proper—and it generally goes fallacious—it’s the closest factor I may think about to being a superhero.”
14 & 15: Tobias Wendl and Tobias Arlt—Germany
The 2 males with the identical first identify, referred to as “the Tobis,” go sledding down icy tracks as the very best doubles luge group on this planet. Wendl and Arlt, each 38, have received six whole/consecutive Olympic gold medals in males’s doubles and the group relay—in 2014, 2018, and 2022. Olympics.com reported that the doubles kings and greatest pals credit score “realizing when to go away the opposite one alone” as a part of their success. Followers will see them go for Video games glory once more in Milan!
16 & 17: Madison Chock and Evan Bates—U.S.
Picture by Gregory Shamus – Worldwide Skating Union on Getty Photos
The American ice dance group and married couple lately received a document seventh U.S. Nationals title. Californian Chock, 33, and Bates, 36, from Michigan, additionally completed first on the world championships the previous three seasons. They solely have one huge aim left—an Olympic medal, and they’re the favorites for Milan gold after inserting eighth in 2014, ninth in 2018, and fourth within the 2022 Winter Video games. Search for the passionate pair to throw down a flamenco-themed “Paint It Black” free skate routine on the Video games this winter.
Subsequent up: Andrea Bocelli Set to Headline 2026 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony
