The 2026 Winter Olympics kicked off final Wednesday with exciting curling showdowns, and the athletic motion shifted into excessive gear this previous weekend, with figure skating, ski leaping, luge, ice hockey and extra occasions showcasing the world’s biggest athletes.
This 12 months’s Milan-Cortina Winter Video games marks Italy’s fourth time internet hosting the Olympic Video games. Occasions like ice hockey and determine skating are happening within the northern metropolis of Milan, whereas the Alpine metropolis of Cortina d’Ampezzo is internet hosting alpine snowboarding, snowboarding and curling.
If you wish to watch the 2026 Winter Video games of their entirety, the very best place for US audiences is Peacock. Each single sport and occasion is streaming dwell, however in the event you’re cautious of the time distinction (Milan is six hours forward of the East Coast), you can even watch full-event replays.
Every day’s hottest occasions are additionally airing on NBC, USA and CNBC in the course of the daytime hours, and NBC is broadcasting Primetime in Milan, a nightly present that includes the very best competitions and highlights of the day. Now that you have the essential TV particulars, this is the whole lot else you must learn about this 12 months’s Winter Video games.
Which sports activities are within the Winter Olympics?
This 12 months’s Winter Video games function 116 medal occasions throughout 16 sports activities. Virtually each occasion on the Winter Video games options women and men, although Nordic Mixed (a mixture of cross-country snowboarding and ski leaping) at the moment permits solely males to compete. Here is an inventory of sports activities at this 12 months’s Winter Video games:
- Alpine Snowboarding
- Biathlon
- Bobsled
- Cross-Nation Snowboarding
- Curling
- Determine Skating
- Freestyle Snowboarding
- Ice Hockey
- Luge
- Nordic Mixed
- Brief Monitor Pace Skating
- Skeleton
- Ski Leaping
- Ski Mountaineering
- Snowboarding
- Pace Skating
What are the brand new occasions on the 2026 Winter Olympics?
There are 15 occasions at this 12 months’s Winter Video games which have appeared in earlier Olympic Video games, however ski mountaineering — skimo for brief — is new for 2026. Ski mountaineering combines parts of Alpine snowboarding, cross-country snowboarding, skinning (uphill snowboarding) and boot packing (mountaineering with skis on a backpack). Athletes are timed as they traverse a course that consists of an ascent, descent and a foot part.
What number of groups and nations are collaborating?
Greater than 3,500 athletes from 93 nations are competing on the 2026 Winter Video games. This consists of athletes within the 16 Olympic occasions and 6 Paralympic sports activities. There are 15 athletes competing as Particular person Impartial Athletes, the designation used to signify permitted particular person Russian and Belarusian athletes not represented by any Nationwide Olympic Committee.
Prime athletes to observe on the 2026 Winter Video games
A few of the world’s biggest athletes are competing at this 12 months’s Winter Video games, together with returning Olympic champions like Lindsay Vonn and Chloe Kim, skilled ice hockey gamers and extra. Keep watch over these contenders because the competitors heats up.
Snowboarding
- Lindsay Vonn (Crew USA): Vonn got here out of retirement to compete at this 12 months’s Winter Video games, her first since 2018. She was anticipated to compete in three snowboarding occasions — downhill, workforce mixed and super-G — however suffered a devastating crash solely seconds into her downhill run on Sunday, Feb. 8.
- Mikaela Shiffrin (Crew USA): Becoming a member of Vonn on the Alpine snowboarding workforce is three-time Olympic medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, who will likely be competing to win her second big slalom gold medal.
- Indra Brown (Crew Australia): One other competitor to observe is 15-year-old freestyle skier Indra Brown, the youngest athlete chosen to signify Australia this 12 months.
Snowboarding
- Chloe Kim, Faye Thelen, Crimson Gerard, Nick Baumgartner (Crew USA): Chloe Kim is synonymous with snowboarding and the gold medalist returns for her third Olympic Video games this 12 months. Returning Olympians Faye Thelen, Crimson Gerard and Nick Baumgartner are additionally on Crew USA’s snowboarding workforce.
- Su Yiming (Crew China): A history-making gold medalist in 2022’s Video games, Su Yiming has been snowboarding since age 4 and has made a reputation for himself doing 1,980-degree spins.
Pace Skating
- Jordan Stolz, (Crew USA): World record-holder Jordan Stolz is on the hunt for his first Olympic gold medal within the males’s 1,000m, certainly one of 4 occasions he’ll be competing in.
- Lim Hyo-jun (Crew China): Lim Hyo-jun, who additionally competes as Lin Xiaojun, beforehand competed for South Korea and switched to signify China at this 12 months’s Olympic Video games after changing into a naturalized Chinese language citizen. He final competed on the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the place he received a short-track gold medal.
Determine Skating
There are 5 Olympic determine skating medal occasions at this 12 months’s Winter Video games: males’s singles, ladies’s singles, pairs, ice dance and the workforce occasion.
- Amber Glenn (Crew USA): Glenn is coming off her third consecutive US championship title and will likely be competing in ladies’s singles.
- Ilia Malinin (Crew USA): Reigning males’s World Champion Ilia Malinin, nicknamed the “Quad God” for his capacity to land quadruple jumps, is a males’s singles gold medal favourite at this 12 months’s video games. He is the son of Tatiana Malinina, an Olympic skater who competed for Uzbekistan within the Nineteen Nineties.
- Kaori Sakamoto (Crew Japan): Champion determine skater Kaori Sakamoto plans to retire after this 12 months’s Olympics, aiming for gold after incomes a bronze medal within the 2022 Winter Video games.
- Max Naumov (Crew USA): Naumov, the son of former Russian determine skating champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, can also be set to compete in males’s singles. Naumov’s mother and father have been amongst these killed within the American Eagle Flight 5342 crash over the Potomac River final 12 months.
- Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps (Crew Canada): Stellato-Dudek, now 42, returned to skating after a 16-year hiatus and is now mounting a bid for gold with companion Deschamps.
- Madison Chock and Evan Bates (Crew USA): American ice dancing pair Chock and Bates are the topics of Netflix’s new docu-series Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, together with Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier and France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.
Ice Hockey
- For the primary time since 2014, skilled ice hockey gamers have been named to Olympic nationwide groups. Crew USA is comprised of professionals from the NHL. In a considerably spectacular stat, there will likely be not less than one NHL participant on all 32 teams competing within the Winter Video games, together with Crew Sweden, Crew Canada, Crew Finland and Crew Denmark.
- Laila Edwards (Crew USA): In 2023, Laila Edwards turned the primary Black lady to play for the US ladies’s nationwide hockey workforce. She beforehand competed on the College of Wisconsin ladies’s ice hockey workforce, the place she earned two nationwide championships below the teaching of Mark Johnson, a member of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” hockey workforce.
Who’re among the commentators and performers on the Winter Video games?
The 2026 Winter Video games Opening Ceremony was a star-studded occasion hosted by NBC Information commentator Terry Gannon and sports activities reporter Mary Carillo. The opening ceremony featured performances by Mariah Carey and Italian opera star Andrea Bocelli. Snowboarder Shaun White, Sabrina Impacciatore of The White Lotus and pianist Lang Lang additionally participated.
YouTube creators are on deck sharing behind-the-scenes takes for Crew USA, together with Jordan Howlett (aka Jordan the Stallion), Hunter and Tara Woodall, Alexa Riviera, Kylie Kelce, MMG and Ashley Alexander.
NBC’s Primetime in Milan protection is hosted by sportscaster Mike Tirico, who’s joined most nights by Snoop Dogg, who made his Olympic commentary debut in Paris. Actor and TV host Stanley Tucci can also be readily available to showcase the native delicacies, tradition and way of life of the Italian cities internet hosting the Winter Video games. Additionally on the bottom in Italy are Elmo, Grover and Cookie Monster and extra Muppet buddies who will seem in social and broadcast protection of the Video games.
As for the precise sporting occasions, NBC has enlisted greater than 80 commentators and analysts to cowl each occasion. Amongst them are Tara Lipinski, Johnny Weir and Scott Hamilton, who will cowl determine skating; former Olympians Picabo Road and Ted Ligety are offering snowboarding evaluation; and gold medalists White and Lindsey Jacobellis are masking snowboarding.
