fifth February 2026
Final modified on February seventh, 2026
Let the Video games start. Crew GB has some real looking medal probabilities on snow and on ice. It’s hoping for its finest ever Winter Olympics. Can it ship? UPDATED
Worldwide Olympic Committee President, Kirsty Coventry, declared the Video games underway on the Opening Ceremony on Friday night.
She is first feminine to open the Olympics – summer time or winter.
“For this reason all of us love the Video games. As a result of by you, we see the easiest of ourselves,” she informed the athletes.
“You remind us that we may be courageous. That we may be form. That we will get again up, regardless of how laborious we fall.
“The spirit of the Olympic Video games is about a lot greater than sport.
“It’s about us – and what makes us human.
“That is the magic of the Olympic Video games: inspiring us all to be the very best that we may be, collectively.”
The cermony mixed musical performances by artists together with Mariah Carey, Laura Pausini and Andrea Bocelli, with a staging idea that prolonged past the San Siro stadium itself.
The lighting of two cauldrons —one at Milan’s Arco della Tempo and the opposite in Cortina d’Ampezzo’s Piazza Dibona— embodies the will to multiply conventional rituals with a purpose to replicate the Video games’ multi-hub nature.
Determine skater Lilah Concern was the Nice Britain flagbearer in Milan, with bobsledder Brad Corridor was provided that honour in Cortina.
Italy apart, the warmest welcome was reserved for the Ukrainian athletes.
There have been boos when US vice-president JD Vance was proven on the massive display, with adverse crowd reactions for the Israel and Georgia groups as nicely.
Organisers described the present as “an prolonged invitation, a shared embrace, celebrating Italian uniqueness and made in Italy.”
Picture c/o Milan-Cortina 2026
Occasions in Italy are unfold between Milan, because the city and ceremonial core, and the Alpine areas of Cortina d’Ampezzo, Valtellina, Val di Fiemme and Livigno, extending throughout Lombardy and Veneto and the autonomous provinces of Trento and Bolzano.
Round 2,900 athletes are competing in 16 disciplines for 116 gold medals.
There are extra ladies’s occasions than ever earlier than at a Winter Video games.
Girls are competing in additional than half of all occasions.
There may be the introduction of recent ladies’s and combined competitions, and the equalisation of distances for women and men in cross-country snowboarding.
Ski mountaineering —a self-discipline combining ascents, descents and excessive endurance— makes its Olympic debut.
Snowboarding in Italy. Picture © PlanetSKI
UK Sport believes Crew GB may win between 4 and eight medals at The Video games.
The crew got here dwelling from the Beijing 2022 Video games with simply two medals.
GB’s finest medal haul at a Winter Video games is 5, achieved at Sochi 2014 after which matched in Pyeongchang 4 years later.
Crew GB is taking twenty snowsport athletes to Milan-Cortina with 4 world class athletes within the ranks.
Mia Brookes, Charlotte Bankes, Zoe Atkin & Kirsty Muir are medal contenders.
Shortly after being formally informed of her place on the Olympic crew Mia Brookes received gold on the X-Video games:
Charlotte Bankes took victory in her final World Cup snowboard cross occasion:
“Being named to Crew GB for Milan Cortina 2026 is a proud and motivating second for me,” stated Zoe Atkin.
“It displays the laborious work and dedication that goes into each day of coaching, and it offers me much more drive as I put together to compete on the Olympic stage.”
She celebrated place on Crew GB with a gold on the X Video games – a second gold for GB after Mia Brooke’s earlier win.
Zoe isn’t any stranger to the World Cup podium this season.
She is competing at a second Olympic Video games and aiming to emulate her sister, Izzy, who received bronze at PyeongChang in 2018 in freeski slopestyle.
Kirsty Muir has had a superb season thus far this season that has seen the 21-year-old Scot declare two World Cup prime spots in each ladies’s freeski slopestyle and large air.
She additionally received a gold on the X Video games:
GB’s different medal hopes:
Crew GB have two of the very best males’s skeleton athletes in two-time world champion Matt Weston and Marcus Wyatt.
Between them, they’ve received each World Cup gold medal this season.
On the ice, Lewis Gibson and Lilah Concern – broadly seen as the subsequent Torvill and Dean – are very a lot in with a shout of successful a primary British Olympic determine skating medal since 1994.
Britain’s curlers look set so as to add to their two medals from 2022.
The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics are underway and finish on Sunday twenty second February.
Listed below are the snowsport athletes representing Nice Britain:
Park & Pipe
Zoe Atkin – Freeski HalfpipeGus Kenworthy – Freeski HalfpipeLiam Richards – Freeski HalfpipeChris McCormick – Freeski Slopestyle and Large AirKirsty Muir – Freeski Slopestyle and Large AirMia Brookes – Snowboard Slopestyle and Large AirMaisie Hill – Snowboard Slopestyle and Large AirTxema Mazet-Brown – Snowboard Slopestyle and Large Air
Alpine Snowboarding
Billy Main – SlalomDave Ryding – SlalomLaurie Taylor – Slalom
Cross-Nation
James ClugnetJoe DaviesAndrew MusgraveAnna Pryce
Snowboard Cross
Charlotte Bankes – Particular person and teamHuw Nightingale – Particular person and crew
Ski Cross
Moguls
Makayla Gerken SchofieldMateo Jeannesson
“It’s an actual honour to be chosen to symbolize Crew GB once more,” stated the alpine ski favorite, Dave Ryding.
“I’m wanting ahead to acting on the largest stage in entrance of a central European crowd for the primary time in my Olympic profession and I can’t wait to get on the market and into the motion.
“I’ve by no means taken without any consideration what it means to symbolize my nation and to have the prospect to compete for Nice Britain at an Olympic Video games for the fifth time is one thing I may solely have dreamed of once I went to my first Video games again in 2010.”
Dave is competing in his final Winter Olympics and a few of the loudest British cheers will probably be for ‘The Rocket’.
Dave Ryding in Schladming. Picture © PlanetSKI
Like Dave, Andrew Musgrave will compete at his fifth Olympics as he participates within the cross-country.
“Over the previous 4 years, our skiers and snowboarders have proven they’re able to mixing it with the easiest on this planet, and the squad that’s heading out for these Video games is an actual reflection of the expertise, grit, and can to win that makes British sport so particular,” stated the GB Snowsport chief govt, Vicky Gosling.
The Milan-Cortina Olympics would be the largest Winter Video games to be staged within the occasion’s historical past.
There will probably be 2,900 athletes from over 90 Nationwide Olympic Committees.
It can even be the largest in geographic phrases – venues are unfold out throughout an space of over 22,000 km².
The BBC will broadcast greater than 450 hours of dwell motion from the Video games.
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