The un-retirement of Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, Olympic debut of NHL gamers together with like Connor Hellebuyck and return of halfpipe snowboarder Chloe Kim are amongst a few of the greatest storylines at these Winter Games.
Hans Bezard/Agence Zoom, Jonathan Kozub/NHLI , Maddie Meyer through Getty Images
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Hans Bezard/Agence Zoom, Jonathan Kozub/NHLI , Maddie Meyer through Getty Images
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There’s no scarcity of Winter Olympics storylines to watch — and we’re not simply speaking about sports activities.
Hundreds of athletes will vie for medals in 16 totally different sports activities over the course of a jam-packed 2 1/2 weeks within the Milan Cortina Games. They will compete at venues spanning an almost 9,000-square-mile swath of northern Italy, in entrance of in-person spectators (a welcome return after the COVID-19 restrictions in Beijing in 2022) and on an excellent greater world stage.
Rising stars — and one new sport — are making their Olympic debuts, whereas acquainted fan favorites are returning, some in pursuit of a comeback after a few years away. Lifelong desires are on the road, however there are additionally geopolitical tensions, environmental questions and a lot extra.
Here are a few of the threads we’re following:
1. Iconic American girls are chasing comebacks
Lindsey Vonn grimaces after crashing in a girls’s downhill race in Switzerland on Friday.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Images
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Fabrice Coffrini/AFP through Getty Images
Legendary American athletes — lots of them girls — throughout a number of sports activities are returning to the Olympic stage after years away. They might embrace Lindsey Vonn, who retired because the winningest feminine skier in historical past in 2019 however returned to competitors after a partial knee substitute in 2024. She certified for the Games at age 41 amid a triumphant World Cup season, however harm her knee in a crash only a week earlier than the opening ceremony. Figure skater Alysa Liu reversed her teenage retirement and now brings a 2025 world title and renewed love of the game to her second Olympics. Another former teenage phenom, halfpipe snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, clinched a spot in her first Olympics at age 31, over a decade after retiring from burnout in 2015. And Alpine skier Breezy Johnson is aiming for redemption on the identical Cortina slopes that destroyed her knee and her final Olympic desires simply weeks earlier than she was set to compete in Beijing in 2022.
-Rachel Treisman
2. International tensions could also be uniquely excessive for U.S. athletes
There’s at all times a political dimension to the Olympic Games, however this 12 months, U.S. athletes may face a uniquely tense ambiance. The Trump administration has sparred with European athletes over a variety of points, together with repeated threats in opposition to Denmark’s sovereign territory in Greenland. (The U.S. and Denmark males’s hockey groups are scheduled to face off on the ice on Feb. 14.) Some Italian politicians have additionally voiced concern concerning the position of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who plan to help with security on the Winter Games. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala informed native media that after the violence in Minneapolis, ICE brokers are “not welcome” in his metropolis. Vice President Vance, a frequent critic of European leaders, is anticipated to attend the opening ceremony on the Games on Feb. 6.
-Brian Mann
3. NHL gamers return to the Olympics
Brothers Brady and Matthew Tkachuk are among the many NHL gamers set to make their Olympic debut for Team USA.
Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
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Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
Olympic hockey hasn’t included gamers from the world’s prime skilled league for greater than a decade. Finally, that period is over, and we get to see some unbelievable groups play in a best-on-best format (though the event will not embrace a Russian group, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022). Some of the league’s greatest stars, like Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, Toronto’s Auston Matthews and Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon, are effectively into their careers with out having had the prospect to play for Olympic gold, and that modifications subsequent month. The star energy on Team Canada alone runs from MacKinnon and McDavid to the legend Sidney Crosby and the San Jose Sharks’ 19-year-old phenom Macklin Celebrini. The Americans aren’t any slouches both, with Matthews, the Tkachuk brothers and a trio of gifted goaltenders led by Connor Hellebuyck, final 12 months’s NHL MVP — and so they’ll have their eyes set on the primary Team USA gold for the reason that “Miracle on Ice” in 1980.
-Becky Sullivan
4. Ski mountaineering makes its Olympic debut
A 2025 Ski Mountaineering World Cup girls’s combined relay occasion in Bormio, Italy, the place the game will make its Olympic debut.
Antonio Calanni/AP
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Antonio Calanni/AP
These Games characteristic a number of new medal occasions and one solely new sport: ski mountaineering. In “skimo,” because it’s referred to as, athletes race each up and downhill, alternately sporting and carrying their skis in backpacks. Alpine nations like Italy, France and Switzerland have a tendency to dominate in skimo (in spite of everything, that is the place the game has its roots), however there shall be a pair of rising American stars to root for: Anna Gibson and Cameron Smith, who earned the U.S. its inaugural Olympic skimo spot with a historic World Cup mixed-relay win in December in Utah.
– Rachel Treisman
5. A brand new technology of U.S. curlers takes the rink
For the primary time in 20 years, the U.S. is not going to be represented by curling legend John Shuster on the Olympics. Shuster competed in each winter Olympics from 2006 to 2022, and led the U.S. males’s group to a shock gold medal on the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. At the 2025 U.S. Olympic Trials, Shuster’s group was defeated by a crew of Gen-Z curlers led by 24-year-old Danny Casper, whose group is at the moment ranked sixth in the world. On the ladies’s aspect, Team Peterson — led by sisters Tabitha and Tara Peterson — heads to the Olympics a second time. And Olympics newbies Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse, world champions in 2023, will characterize the U.S. in combined doubles.
-Pien Huang
6. Mikaela Shiffrin needs to put her 2022 Olympic disappointment behind her
Mikaela Shiffrin smiles after putting first within the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Women’s Slalom in late January, simply days earlier than the beginning of the Olympics.
Millo Moravski/Agence Zoom/Getty Images
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Millo Moravski/Agence Zoom/Getty Images
Mikaela Shiffrin is essentially the most adorned skier ever, full cease. Nobody, man or girl, has gained extra races than Shiffrin, who has 108 World Cup wins, 12 season titles (in three totally different disciplines) and 5 total titles to her title. But Olympic success has proved extra elusive for Shiffrin. She has gained simply three medals in her three Olympic appearances — together with a surprising shutout in 2022 when she missed the rostrum in all 5 of her occasions. Then, in 2024, Shiffrin sustained a freak damage that would have derailed her profession. In a race that fall, she crashed and sustained a mysterious however extreme puncture wound that sidelined her for months. Now, although, Shiffrin has returned to prime type in her signature occasion, the slalom. She has competed in eight World Cup slalom races thus far this winter and gained all however one (through which she completed second). You’ll have to be affected person, although: The girls’s slalom is likely one of the final alpine snowboarding occasions of the complete Olympics.
-Becky Sullivan
7. The logistical feat of a widespread winter Games
Organizers are calling these essentially the most geographically widespread winter Games in historical past, spanning an space of roughly 8,495 sq. miles. They are co-hosted by metropolitan Milan and the Alpine resort city of Cortina d’Ampezzo, dispersed throughout four main competition clusters and 6 Olympic villages. Even the opening ceremony is unfold out, hosted primarily at Milan’s historic San Siro Stadium with simultaneous athlete processions at venues in Predazzo, Livigno and Cortina. And, in a historic first, two Olympic cauldrons will ignite the motion: one in Milan and one in Cortina. The Feb. 22 closing ceremony will happen between the host cities, at a Roman amphitheater in Verona.
-Rachel Treisman
8. Could the U.S. win its first-ever biathlon medal?
Deedra Irwin, pictured warming up earlier than an occasion in 2023, may very well be Team USA’s greatest hope for its first ever medal in biathlon, which mixes cross-country snowboarding with precision rifle taking pictures.
Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency/AFP through Getty Images
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Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency/AFP through Getty Images
Biathlon is the one winter Olympic sport through which the U.S. has by no means gained a medal. Brutal! The sport is manner greater in Europe, and athletes from nations like Norway and France have historically dominated. Then, on the 2022 Games in Beijing, Deedra Irwin got here nearer than any American earlier than her when she completed in seventh place within the girls’s particular person occasion. Now, she’s again for a second strive. Like many American biathletes, Irwin took a winding path to the game. She did not even develop up round weapons — her first reminiscence of firing a gun was at a women’ evening at her faculty’s taking pictures vary — and she or he did not try the game till she was in her mid-20s, after pursuing a profession as a Nordic skier (and residing out of her automobile). Meanwhile, the 23-year-old Campbell Wright simply scored his first ever podium end in a World Cup race. (“Not gonna lie, I’ve been wanting a podium pretty bad. Maybe too much … but today it worked out!” he wrote on his Instagram after.) It’s the second Olympic look for Wright, who’s ranked No. 10 on this planet, however his first for the U.S. after the twin nationwide switched his nationwide allegiance from New Zealand.
-Becky Sullivan
9. In-person spectators are again
The COVID-19 pandemic restricted in-person spectators and required masks (with some exceptions) on the final Winter Olympics, in Beijing in 2022. Many athletes have shared that they are trying ahead to competing in entrance of crowds, feeding off the vitality of a packed enviornment and getting to take within the second with their family members by their aspect. Figure skater Alysa Liu, who competed in Beijing, informed reporters: “I had a lot of fun at that one. Everyone’s saying, ‘Listen, that one’s nothing compared to what a real Olympics is like.'”
-Rachel Treisman
10. Environmentalists say the Games are damaging a fragile ecosystem
Clouds grasp over the ‘Seceda’ Dolomites mountain within the northern Italian province of South Tyrol, which is internet hosting Olympic biathlon occasions.
Matthias Schrader/AP
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Matthias Schrader/AP
The Italian Dolomites are a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, and organizers promised to use the Games to “showcase the importance of protecting sensitive mountain ecosystems.” But environmentalists say water sources are being strained, and building initiatives have additional contributed to the “urbanization” of a mountain system already careworn by overtourism. As the area faces hotter and shorter winters due to local weather change, most sporting occasions will happen on synthetic snow and ice. The organising committee estimates it is going to require 250 million gallons of water — the equal of almost 380 Olympic swimming swimming pools — taken from native rivers, streams and lakes, which environmental teams say may pressure the native ecosystem. Eight key environmental organizations in a joint assertion denounced the Games’ sustainability claims as “greenwashing” and identified that the organizing committee has failed to conduct in-depth environmental surveys of the affect of those modifications on the Dolomite area.
-Ruth Sherlock
11. After doping scandals in Beijing and Paris, will Milan have clear competitors?
The Milan Olympics open at a time of deep division amongst worldwide companies that police athletes to stop the usage of performance-enhancing medication. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) has lengthy served as the worldwide chief defending clear sport. But critics say WADA failed to correctly examine doping scandals forward of the Beijing Winter Olympics, involving a Russian determine skater, and on the Paris Summer Games, involving a bunch of Chinese swimmers. “It necessarily and unfortunately clouds the confidence heading into these [Milan] Games,” stated Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in an interview with NPR. In a statement this month, WADA President Witold Bańka referred to as for unity. “We hope that, like us, you are feeling revitalized and eager to work together to advance clean sport in 2026,” he stated. But belief stays at a minimal, with the U.S. authorities withholding its WADA dues in an effort to press for reform.
-Brian Mann
12. U.S. determine skaters are poised to make the rostrum — and historical past
The lately nicknamed “Blade Angels” — Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito — will characterize Team USA in girls’s determine skating.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America
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Jamie Squire/Getty Images North America
This is arguably the strongest figure skating team the U.S. has despatched to an Olympics in years. The stacked roster of Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito may win the U.S. its first girls’s singles gold since 2002. On the boys’s aspect, Ilia “Quad God” Malinin is favored for gold — and poised to change into the primary individual to land a quadruple axel (a soar that solely he can do) at an Olympics. In ice dance, seven-time reigning nationwide champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates are searching for redemption after ending simply off the rostrum in Beijing in 2022. The U.S. can also be searching for to defend its 2022 gold medal in the team event, with Japan now its foremost rival in mild of Russia’s efficient exclusion from the Olympics.
-Rachel Treisman
13. Can the U.S. work its manner up the medal depend?
The U.S. gained 25 medals in 2022, putting fifth within the overall medal count behind Norway, the Russian Olympic Committee, Germany and Canada. Norway has long dominated the Winter Olympics medal depend, going into this 12 months with a complete of 405 and a file 148 gold. The U.S. is hoping a few of that particular sauce would possibly rub off on its ski leaping group, which has won only one medal ever, on the inaugural 1924 Olympics. After 2022, the ski leaping federations of the U.S. and Norway formally partnered to share coaches, coaching services and sports activities scientists. That has given the U.S. a lift and at the very least one Olympic medal contender: 20-year-old Lake Placid, N.Y., native Tate Frantz, who moved to Norway to practice and work with Norwegian coaches and jumpers. “I’d say it was extremely important,” Frantz informed NPR. “It pushes you astronomically.” The U.S. can also be hoping the return of NHL males’s hockey gamers to Team USA will give the boys a shot at a gold medal for the primary time since 1980.
-Rachel Treisman
14. Team USA bobsled mothers may medal
Bobsledder Kaillie Humphries holds her son, Aulden Armbruster, in the course of the 2025 IBSF World Championships. She went via IVF remedies whereas competing.
Al Bello/Getty Images
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Al Bello/Getty Images
Several elite athletes are again on the prime of their sport after giving delivery. Kaillie Humphries is again on competing in her fifth Olympic Games (her second for Team USA; she represented Canada for her first three competitions — or 4, when you depend the 12 months she served as an alternate). She has a 1-year-old son, born after a number of IVF makes an attempt. “I got back in the bobsled 4 1/2 months postpartum, so it wasn’t the ideal timeline,” Humphries says, “I’m not a spring chicken anymore.” Still, Humphries is a prime contender in monobob, for which she gained a gold medal on the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and gained once more on the IBSF World Cup in January. She’s joined by Elana Meyers-Taylor, the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics historical past, and a fellow mother who’s additionally again for her fifth Olympics. Meyers-Taylor returned to aggressive bobsledding after the delivery of every of her kids, now 3 and 6. “It’s been quite a bit on my body,” she says, citing years of breastfeeding, lack of sleep, again ache, and getting older, “I might not win every race and every day might look crazy and chaotic…But I wouldn’t trade it for the world, clearly,” she says.
-Pien Huang
15. U.S. males look to finish a 46-year medal drought in cross-country snowboarding
Gus Schumacher, pictured on the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Trondheim in 2025, may earn U.S. males their first cross-country ski medal in nearly half a century.
Lars Baron/Getty Images
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Lars Baron/Getty Images
Alaskan Gus Schumacher is the strongest medal contender for U.S. males, who’ve gained solely a single Olympic cross-country medal, Bill Koch’s silver within the 30K in 1976 in Innsbruck. American girls Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall took the first-ever U.S. gold in cross nation within the group dash in Pyeongchang 2018. Diggins gained a silver and bronze in Beijing in 2022. On the World Cup tour, Schumacher has proven he can beat the world’s greatest in middle-distance occasions within the skate snowboarding self-discipline. He’s having his greatest World Cup season ever, with two dash podiums on successive days within the final races earlier than the Olympics. Vermonter Ben Ogden is one other to watch. He has turned heads with daring techniques within the extra conventional traditional approach and has had good ends in skate snowboarding races, too. A tough reality, although, is the dominance of the Norwegian group and a robust area of Europeans. But do not depend the U.S. out for a medal within the four-man relay, it is a notoriously unpredictable occasion and Schumacher, Ogden and John Hagenbuch have been on the group that gained the occasion within the 2019 Junior World Championship.
-Eric Whitney
16. Multiple snowboarders may land a historic three-peat
U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim turned the primary girl ever to win two Olympic gold medals in halfpipe in 2022. Since then, she’s added jaw-dropping new tips to her repertoire, together with landing a cab 1260 (3 1/2 revolutions) in competitors — one other feminine first — and a 1440 in follow. She’s aiming for gold once more, even after a last-minute shoulder injury saved her from coaching within the weeks main up to the Games. Two different girls are additionally hoping to change into the primary snowboarders to three-peat in consecutive Winter Games: The Czech Republic’s Ester Ledecka in parallel large slalom and Austria’s Anna Gasser in large air.
-Rachel Treisman
17. The U.S. sends its strongest lengthy observe speedskating group in a long time
U.S. speedskater Erin Jackson, pictured in January, is the defending Olympic gold medalist within the girls’s 500-meter occasion.
Matthias Schrader/AP
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Matthias Schrader/AP
The prolific Jordan Stolz — a favourite within the 500, 1000, 1500 meters and the mass begin occasion — is poised to make speedskating historical past unseen since U.S. speedskater Eric Heiden gained 5 gold medals within the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. After a robust end on the World Cup, Erin Jackson now heads to Milano Cortina to prepare to defend her Olympic title at her third Games, skating quick and turning left within the Women’s 500 and 1000. Four-time Olympian Brittany Bowe brings her a long time of inline speedskating expertise, explosive energy and approach to the Women’s Team Pursuit. The Women’s and Men’s Team Pursuit — which entails two groups of three individuals racing in tandem — goes to be scorching at these video games. Team USA has dominated this occasion over the previous 4 years, mastering the precision, approach and style that persistently yields prime outcomes. Skaters are a mirror picture of each other throughout each lap of the race. It’ll be very like watching synchronized swimming. Any slight misstep will be the distinction between coming in first or tenth.
-Rolando Arrieta
18. Some Russian athletes can compete, however not underneath their very own flag
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended Russia and its ally Belarus after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But it did permit a small number of heavily vetted athletes from these nations to compete as “Individual Neutral Athletes” (AIN) in Paris in 2024, with none nationwide anthems, flags or colours (as an alternative represented by a turquoise emblem). Similar guidelines apply to these Games, with impartial athletes’ participation on the discretion of every worldwide sports activities federation. Russian athletes — even prime NHL gamers like Alex Ovechkin and Nikita Kucherov — shall be noticeably absent from the hockey rink, whereas a choose handful will compete in sports together with determine skating, cross-country snowboarding and short-track speedskating.
-Rachel Treisman
19. Women cross-country skiers will race on equal footing with males for the primary time
Women have lengthy struggled to obtain parity on the Winter Olympics, and the 2026 Games mark one other milestone. Female cross-country ski racers have been first allowed to compete in a single short-track occasion at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. This 12 months, girls will compete in the identical variety of occasions — a complete of six — as their male counterparts. They’ll additionally ski the identical distances, together with the grueling 50k endurance race. “I’m really really excited to have equal distance for men and women at the Olympics,” three-time U.S. Olympic medal-winner Jessie Diggins informed NPR. Diggins plans to compete in all six occasions at Milan-Cortina. “I think it’s really cool and an important way to show, especially young women in sport, hey, you got this,” she stated.
-Brian Mann