Ben Deihl | sports editor

The 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics have finally kicked off, with the opening ceremony and events starting on Friday. The 2026 rendition features eight new medaled events and a completely new sport in ski mountaineering, with a total of 116 gold medals to be awarded to a field of 92 competing countries.
 

The United States women’s hockey team started hot, tallying five goals in each of their first four Olympic matches, outscoring opponents 20-1 over that span. The team is on a three-game streak of 5-0 shutouts, most recently boxing out the Canadians for the first time in team history.
 

Team USA captain Hilary Knight tied the U.S. women’s hockey record for career goals (14) and total points (32) in the team’s second preliminary match against Finland. Knight and the rest of the women’s national team will ride their win streak into a quarterfinal matchup with Italy on Friday at 3:10 p.m.

In only the third rendition of the big air snowboard competition, China’s defending gold medalist Su Yiming was dethroned by 21-year-old Japanese prodigy Kira Kimura. Kimura finished his run with two 1900 jumps on his two best runs, completing five rotations in the air before a perfect landing to solidify his gold medal.

As its name suggests, big air is a one-run, one-jump competition where height, distance and tricks award competitors with the most points. Each athlete gets three runs, and their two best scores are combined to create their final score.

Teammate and current world champion Ryoma Kimata took silver, while defending champion Yiming collected the bronze medal for China. Notably, 17-year-old Oliver Martin grabbed fourth for the U.S., just 2.25 points behind Yiming for a podium spot.

In the men’s and women’s downhill finals, athletes are faced with a 63% gradient as their launch point on the world-famous Stelvio piste, shooting them from 0-60 mph in under seven seconds.

The San Pietro jump is the biggest turning point in the descent, boasting a staggering 50 degree landing that launches skiers over 170 feet in the air. The Stelvio features a grand 300-meter straightaway before the Carcentina diagonal, testing each skier’s body control and aerodynamics to its highest degree.

The men’s downhill final saw the Swiss national team dominate early, as favorite Marco Odermatt skied his way into a comfortable first place time after notching an event-high speed of 91 mph. But teammate Franjo von Allmen took a blistering 0.7 seconds off Odermatt’s time, securing gold for Switzerland and positioning the Swiss for a podium sweep.

But the Italians wouldn’t give up their home snow without a fight. After a slow start, Giovanni Franzoni used momentum from his huge jump at the San Pietro to come back from half a second behind time, positioning himself in second place, just 0.2 seconds behind von Allmen for gold.

Next, 36-year-old Dominik Paris used the 63% starting gradient to full effect, reaching top speed quickly and maintaining his pace to capture bronze for Italy, solidifying a majority-Italian podium on their home slopes.

The Italians’ success comes just five months after teammate Matteo Franzoso died after a crash during training in Santiago, Chile. The loss shocked the skiing community, deeply impacting the Italian national team, especially Franzoni, who was close to Franzoso before his death.

“This medal is a dream. I dedicate it to Franzoso,” Franzoni said to Sky Italia after his silver medal placement.

But it was the United States who captured the headlines in the women’s downhill finals as Breezy Johnson defended her world championship crown and captured gold, beating Germany’s Emma Aicher by 0.04 seconds and avenging her Stelvio crash that held her out of the 2022 Olympics.

“The best way for me to compete is to know that, though tough things can happen, it’s still worth it in the end,” Johnson said on the “TODAY” show. “Going out and giving it your all despite the risks is something that not a lot of people can do.”

U.S. teammate Lindsey Vonn made headlines too, although her time in the spotlight was a result of her devastating crash just seconds after her initial descent at Stelvio.

Two weeks before the Olympics, Vonn completely severed her ACL competing in the Alpine Ski World Cup. Despite the severity of the injury, Vonn promised she would still compete in the Olympics.

Just 13 seconds after her run started, Vonn cut a corner too tight, snagging her arm on the gate, sending her spiraling down the mountain. She suffered a “complex tibia fracture” that will require multiple surgeries to correct, effectively ending the 41-year-old’s skiing career as she aimed to become the oldest alpine skier to medal at the Olympics.

Team USA got a much-needed boost in the figure skating team event, tied with Japan entering the final leg of the event: the men’s free skate.

But Ilia Malinin had his team’s back. Although he wouldn’t attempt his world-famous quadruple axel, his signature backflip to end his near-perfect, 200.03-point segment boosted the Americans to first, with Japan’s Shun Sato as the last roadblock to a U.S. team gold.

Sato landed three quad jumps and had a near-perfect run, but his scoresheet sat at 194.86. As the ice chips settled, the Americans earned gold on Malinin’s clutch free skate finale.

The Swedes and Norwegians dominated across the four cross-country ski finals, with the Swedish sweeping the podium in the women’s sprint classic. The two teams combined for 10 of the possible 12 podium finishes across the four events, solidifying the Scandinavian peninsula as the cross-country skiing capital of the world.

Ben Deihl can be reached at deihlb1@duq.edu