What to watch out for at the Winter Olympics

The 2026 Winter Olympics officially kick off with the opening ceremony at San Siro Stadium in Milan this evening.

The Games are officially branded Milano Cortina 2026 and are spread across northern Italy, with Milan serving as the primary city host. It’s been 70 years since the Olympic Flame first arrived in Cortina d'Ampezzo, which is co-hosting and anchoring the mountain events.

Now, viewers can look forward to new events, political controversies... and a rumpus over some suspicious packages.

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Skimo

The new event of ski mountaineering – known as skimo – sees athletes “run up a mountain and ski back down it again” in what “may or may not be best understood as an elaborate metaphor for the human condition”, said The Guardian. Let’s hope it “does as well as ski ballet, bandy, and military patrol”, and “some of the other sports” the Winter Games has “offered over the years”.

Ice Agents

Tension has been growing in Italy, after it was confirmed that the US immigration enforcement agency, whose officers fatally shot two people in Minneapolis, would be sending agents to “bolster security”, said ITV News.

There’s been “outrage” in Italy, but the Italian foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, said that the Ice agents who were coming were not “those with machine guns and their faces covered”. They are coming because “it’s the department responsible for counter-terrorism”, he said.

Unlikely stars

As Eddie “the Eagle” Edwards showed in the 1980s, Olympic winners “aren’t always on the podium”, said ITV News. This year’s “unexpected heroes” could include the US ice dancer Maxim Naumov, who hopes to honour his parents and life-long coaches, who were killed in a plane crash in Washington DC a year ago.

The Jamaican bobsleigh team will continue the country’s “legacy” in a sport that helped inspire the Disney film, “Cool Runnings”. The speed skater Jutta Leerdam, fiancee of influencer Jake Paul, is struggling to be seen as heroic: she’s already been accused of “diva” antics for taking a “private jet” to Italy, reported the Daily Mail.

Individual Neutral Athletes

Athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports have been banned from many tournaments since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. So, as at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Russian and Belarusian athletes will only be allowed to compete as “Individual Neutral Athletes” (AIN).

But several Russian athletes approved to compete as neutrals “have links to activity supporting the war in Ukraine”, said BBC Sport. For example, Petr Gumennik, a figure skater, has recently worked with and been coached by Ilya Averbukh, who has been sanctioned by Ukraine.

Family dynasty

The three Macuga sisters will be “looking to take over the Olympic skiing world”, said NBC: Lauren, an Alpine skier; Alli, who takes parts in moguls; and Sam, a ski jumper. To add to the family feel, their younger brother, Daniel, is an “up-and-coming competitor” in Alpine skiing.

A 17-year-old skier will join his 46-year-old mother in Mexico’s tiny Winter Olympic team in Italy. Alpine skier Lasse Gaxiola has been named Mexico’s fifth athlete for the Winter Olympics. He will compete in the same sport as his mother, the veteran Olympian Sarah Schleper.

Penis scandal 

Claims that ski jumpers are using penis injections to fly further are being investigated by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Bild reported concerns that male athletes might inject hyaluronic acid into their penises, in a bid to increase the size of their genitalia, allowing them larger ski-suits which could improve aerodynamics.

A study in the scientific journal Frontiers found that adding 2cm to the circumference of a suit would reduce drag by 4% and increase lift by 5%. So theoretically, a 2cm enhancement in suit size would give an extra 5.6m in jump length. Olympians competing at the Game will have their crotches “microchipped” in “an effort to crackdown on cheating”, claimed The Sun.