by Alison Brown
We are exactly one month from the Opening Ceremony of the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games. Only one month! It is always fun to try to guess what we will be talking about once the competition gets underway. Who will be the breakout stars, media darlings, and press complaints at this Winter Olympics? Let’s make some predictions:
Hockey: The Good, the Bad, and the Unfinished
Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena is not finished and (let’s be honest) construction won’t be complete by the time the 2026 Winter Olympics tournament kicks off. Sure the ice, dressing rooms, and player areas will be ready to go, but we fans and press will see plenty of orange cones and yellow tape blocking off unfinished areas.
Once we get past that, the play will be the star. Will Canada win both the men’s and the women’s tournament? Will the US? Could underdogs, like Czechia or Sweden, upend the podium? Can Finland, 2022 men’s gold medalist and women’s bronze medalist, pull off an upset in either or even both tournaments? Olympic ice hockey looks to be exciting, hard-fought, and a competitive highlight.
US Speedskating
Beijing 2022 gold medalist Erin Jackson at the Team USA Media Summit, October 2025.
US Speedskating named its 2026 Winter Olympics team after its Olympic Trials this past weekend. Phenom Jordan Stolz will be gunning for gold in four events but Casey Dawson also made the team in four events. The two will only go head-to-head in the 1500m so Team USA could have a gold medal haul for the ages. The American women are just as impressive. Beijing 2022 gold medalist, and one of our favorites, Erin Jackson is looking to repeat in the 500m. She has struggled with injuries but looked solid in her races at Trials, also qualifying in the 1000m along with veteran Brittany Bowe. This could be the most successful Winter Olympics for Team USA in speed skating in decades.
A Possible First Medal
The US has won an Olympic medal in every winter sport except biathlon. That could change this year courtesy of Campbell Wright, an American biathlete via New Zealand. Wright won two silver medals at last year’s world championship and two top ten finishes so far this season. With his charming good looks and Kiwi accent, Wright is certain to be a hit on the late-night TV circuit, if he manages a podium finish.
Japan v USA in Figure Skating
In the team, women’s, and men’s events in figure skating, we expect to see Japanese and American skaters on the 2026 Winter Olympics podium. The only question is how many and on what step. The likely US women’s team (Amber Glenn, Isabeau Levito, and Alysa Liu) have the potential to win all the medals, as do the Japanese women (Mone Chiba, Ami Nakai, and Kaori Sakamoto).
Ilia Malinin will bring more quads to Olympic ice than any skater ever but Japan’s Yumi Kagayami should be a solid bet for the silver medal. We hope organizers have ironed and steamed plenty of Japanese and American flags for the medal ceremonies (unlike at the World Championships last March).
Unironed flags not being properly prepared behind the scenes at the 2025 World Figure Skating Championships in March.
We have a full breakdown on what to look for in the figure skating competition with NBC producer and co-host of The Runthrough Sarah Hughes on the podcast. Take a listen!
40 and Fabulous
Plenty of veterans are coming back for more Olympics at ages that we haven’t often seen before. You have certainly heard about skier Lindsey Vonn’s (age 41) comeback and recent world cup victory. She is hardly alone as an Olympian in her 40s. Bobsledders Elana Meyers Taylor (41) and Kaillie Humphries (40) are each looking to qualify for Olympics #5, as is snowboarder Nick Baumgartner (44).
And it isn’t just Team USA. Swiss ski jumper Simon Amman (44), Austrian snowboarders Andreas Prommegger (45) and Benny Karl (40), and Italian Roland Fischnaller (45) all share birth years from the 1980s. We could see new records for oldest Olympic medalists in more than a few events.
Multi-Olympic medalist Elana Meyers Taylor. Photo courtesy of Xfinity.
Flu Outbreak
While fears of COVID-19 have faded, that doesn’t mean we won’t be talking about illness at the Winter Olympics. Europe, like the US, is experiencing a severe outbreak of seasonal flu, particularly the so-called K variant. Flu shots available this year in the US and throughout Europe do not include protection for this nasty strain. With thousands of athletes living in close quarters in the Olympic Village, and millions of fans packing venues and tourist sites around Milano, expect to hear about an uptick in infections. Let’s hope we don’t fall victim like we did at Paris 2024!
Those are our picks; what do you think will be the stories we can’t get enough of from Milano-Cortina 2026? Let us know!