Around 2,900 athletes from more than 90 countries will compete on the ice and snow at Milan-Cortina 2026.
The world’s biggest winter sports stars will descend on northern Italy from Friday 6 February and there’s certain to be thrills, drama and breakout performances.
BBC Sport takes a look at some of the global stars and stories to look out for.
Lindsey Vonn – alpine skiing
Age: 41 Nation: United States
Just five days before the women’s downhill event takes place in Cortina, Olympic champion Lindsey Vonn announced that she had ruptured her left anterior cruciate ligament but is still hopeful that she can compete on Sunday.
Vonn was airlifted to hospital in Switzerland after crashing in the final World Cup race of the season but remains determined to compete in her fifth Olympics, despite the serious injury.
The veteran skier is no stranger to a comeback having retired in 2019 because of injury before undergoing partial replacement knee surgery on her right knee and returning to the sport in 2024.
The four-time overall World Cup winner is unsure whether she will be able to compete in the super-G and team events but, as a heavy favourite for the downhill gold before suffering the injury, she is determined to make the start gate at what will likely be her last Olympics.
Mikaela Shiffrin – alpine skiing
Age: 30 Nation: United States
Mikaela Shiffrin is the greatest alpine skier of all time and, competing at her fourth Olympics, has said she wants to “make peace” with the Games following disappointment in Beijing along with serious injury and mental health struggles.
The five-time overall World Cup winner has 108 World Cup wins, securing victory in the opening five slalom events of the season which, when added to her victory in the final slalom of last season, equalled her own record of six consecutive wins in the discipline.
But the two-time Olympic champion will be targeting a return to the podium in Cortina while her fiance Aleksander Aamodt Kilde is also on the comeback trail from a bad injury.
Maxim Naumov – figure skating
Age: 24 Nation: United States
American figure skater Maxim Naumov’s participation in the Milan-Cortina Games could be emotional as he makes his Olympic debut after his parents were killed in a plane crash in Washington DC last year.
Naumov’s dream to make Team USA was one of the last things he spoke about with his parents before they were killed.
His parents, Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, skated for Russia and were world champions in pairs figure skating in 1994.
Emily Harrop – skimo
Age: 28 Nation: France
Ski mountaineering, or ‘skimo’, is making its Olympic debut at Milan-Cortina and, while Great Britain have failed to qualify an athlete in the Games’ new sport, France’s Emily Harrop is the next best thing.
With English parents, Harrop could have competed for Team GB but having relocated to the French Alps as a child she opted to represent France.
Harrop is well placed for an Olympic medal having finished the 2025 season with seven wins out of seven races at the ski mountaineering World Cup, winning the sprint and overall crystal globe for the fourth consecutive season.
Jutta Leerdam – speed skating
Age: 28 Nation: Netherlands
Dutch speed skater Jutta Leerdam will compete in the 1,000m and 500m in Milan.
A former world sprint champion, Leerdam also won a silver medal in the 1,000m at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
She is also engaged to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul, who can often be spotted at competitions and will be cheering her on from the sidelines in Italy.
Finley Melville Ives – freestyle skiing
Age: 19 Nation: New Zealand
Teenager Finley Melville Ives arrives in Italy as one of the most exciting prospects on the freestyle skiing circuit.
Ives’ parents are both snowboard instructors and his twin brother followed in their footsteps, but Ives opted instead for skis from a young age.
His breakout season came last year when he claimed his first World Cup victory in Calgary then weeks later became the halfpipe world champion in Engadin, Switzerland, beating Olympic greats Alex Ferreira and Nick Goepper along the way.
Eileen Gu – freestyle skiing
Age: 22 Nation: China
Born and raised in California, freestyle skier Eileen Gu was China’s poster girl for Beijing 2022, where – aged 18 – she won gold in the big air and freeski halfpipe competitions and silver in the slopestyle.
In addition to her Olympic triumphs, she is also a two-time world champion and three-time Winter X Games champion.
Away from the snow, Gu is one of the most famous winter sports athletes in the world and has modelled in New York, Barcelona, Paris and at Milan Fashion Week while also studying quantum physics at Stanford University.
NHL stars – ice hockey
For the first time since Sochi 2014, the National Hockey League is permitting its athletes to participate in the Winter Olympics.
NHL stars did not travel to the 2018 or 2022 Games because of financial disputes and pandemic-related complications but will return to the ice this year.
In their absence, the last two men’s titles have been won by Olympic teams from Russia and Finland while the United States failed to win a medal at both events, but this could be a huge boost to their hopes of returning to the podium.
Chloe Kim – snowboarding
Age: 25 Nation: United States
Eight years after winning gold as a 17-year-old in Pyeongchang, American halfpipe snowboarder Chloe Kim is going for a three-peat in Italy.
She successfully defended her title in Beijing four years ago but her preparations for Milan-Cortina have been disrupted after she dislocated her shoulder at the beginning of the year.
She said in an update on Instagram she was “good to go” for the Games, where she will aim to become the first woman to win three consecutive Olympic gold medals in the halfpipe.
Francesco Friedrich – Bobsleigh
Age: 35 Nation: Germany
Legendary German bobsleigh pilot Francesco Friedrich arrives in Italy hoping to become the first man do the treble double – winning two and four-man gold for the third Games in a row.
He is a 16-time world champion across the two and four-man events while he has well over 100 World Cup podium finishes, claiming a 50th victory in the two-man earlier this year.
Germany tend to dominate the Olympic bobsleigh events and the question is whether anyone can stop him from making history.
Arianna Fontana – speed skating
Age: 35 Nation: Italy
Competing at her sixth Games, Arianna Fontana is an 11-time Winter Olympic medallist and has won medals at her five previous appearances – including as a 15-year-old in Turin.
Twenty years later, the short track skater is also aiming to compete in long track speed skating.
Two-time Olympic champion Fontana will also be one of Italy’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony at the San Siro.
Lucas Pinheiro Braathen – alpine skiing
Age: 25 Nation: Brazil
Norwegian-born skier Lucas Pinheiro Braathen could make history in Italy by winning a first Winter Olympics medal for a South American country after he switched allegiance to compete for his mother’s home country of Brazil.
The slalom and giant slalom expert retired in 2023 having competed for Norway but returned in 2025 to represent Brazil and became the first Brazilian to finish on a World Cup podium last year before claiming the country’s first victory this season to add to his five for Norway.
A charismatic and deep-thinking character, Braathen says that people don’t believe him when he tells them he represents Brazil in alpine skiing.
Adeliia Petrosian – figure skating
Age: 18 Nation: Independent Neutral Athlete
Russian skater Adeliia Petrosian is one of around 20 Russian or Belarusian athletes competing under a neutral flag in Italy.
The teenager had not competed internationally at senior level until the Olympic qualifiers because of the ban on Russian athletes but is a genuine medal contender having won the qualifying event.
She is coached by the controversial Eteri Tutberidze, who coached Kamila Valieva during the Beijing 2022 Olympics. Valieva was given a four-year ban for doping after she helped Russia to win team gold before it was then revealed she had failed a drug test before the start of the Games.
Ilia Malinin – figure skating
Age: 21 Nation: United States
Ilia Malinin is the only skater to have successfully landed the quadruple Axel, skating’s most difficult jump, in competition, earning him the nickname the ‘Quad God’.
The American, born to Olympic figure skaters Tatiana Malinina and Roman Skorniakov, is the hot favourite for the men’s singles title in Italy with previous routines including seven quads and a back flip.
The reigning world champion will be competing at his first Olympics having controversially been left out of the US team in Beijing.
Leave a Reply