The 2026 Winter Olympics kicked off last Wednesday with exciting curling showdowns, and the athletic action shifted into high gear this past weekend, with figure skating, ski jumping, luge, ice hockey and more events showcasing the world’s greatest athletes.
This year’s Milan-Cortina Winter Games marks Italy’s fourth time hosting the Olympic Games. Events like ice hockey and figure skating are taking place in the northern city of Milan, while the Alpine city of Cortina d’Ampezzo is hosting alpine skiing, snowboarding and curling.
If you want to watch the 2026 Winter Games in their entirety, the best place for US audiences is Peacock. Every single sport and event is streaming live, but if you’re wary of the time difference (Milan is six hours ahead of the East Coast), you can also watch full-event replays.
Each day’s most popular events are also airing on NBC, USA and CNBC during the daytime hours, and NBC is broadcasting Primetime in Milan, a nightly show featuring the best competitions and highlights of the day. Now that you’ve got the basic TV details, here’s everything else you need to know about this year’s Winter Games.
Which sports are in the Winter Olympics?
This year’s Winter Games feature 116 medal events across 16 sports. Almost every event at the Winter Games features men and women, though Nordic Combined (a mix of cross-country skiing and ski jumping) currently allows only men to compete. Here’s a list of sports at this year’s Winter Games:
- Alpine Skiing
- Biathlon
- Bobsled
- Cross-Country Skiing
- Curling
- Figure Skating
- Freestyle Skiing
- Ice Hockey
- Luge
- Nordic Combined
- Short Track Speed Skating
- Skeleton
- Ski Jumping
- Ski Mountaineering
- Snowboarding
- Speed Skating
What are the new events at the 2026 Winter Olympics?
There are 15 events at this year’s Winter Games that have appeared in previous Olympic Games, but ski mountaineering — skimo for short — is new for 2026. Ski mountaineering combines elements of Alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, skinning (uphill skiing) and boot packing (hiking with skis on a backpack). Athletes are timed as they traverse a course that consists of an ascent, descent and a foot section.
How many teams and countries are participating?
More than 3,500 athletes from 93 countries are competing at the 2026 Winter Games. This includes athletes in the 16 Olympic events and six Paralympic sports. There are 15 athletes competing as Individual Neutral Athletes, the designation used to represent approved individual Russian and Belarusian athletes not represented by any National Olympic Committee.
Top athletes to watch at the 2026 Winter Games
Some of the world’s greatest athletes are competing at this year’s Winter Games, including returning Olympic champions like Lindsay Vonn and Chloe Kim, professional ice hockey players and more. Keep an eye on these contenders as the competition heats up.
Skiing
- Lindsay Vonn (Team USA): Vonn came out of retirement to compete at this year’s Winter Games, her first since 2018. She was expected to compete in three skiing events — downhill, team combined and super-G — but suffered a devastating crash only seconds into her downhill run on Sunday, Feb. 8.
- Mikaela Shiffrin (Team USA): Joining Vonn on the Alpine skiing team is three-time Olympic medalist Mikaela Shiffrin, who will be competing to win her second giant slalom gold medal.
- Indra Brown (Team Australia): Another competitor to watch is 15-year-old freestyle skier Indra Brown, the youngest athlete selected to represent Australia this year.
Snowboarding
- Chloe Kim, Faye Thelen, Red Gerard, Nick Baumgartner (Team USA): Chloe Kim is synonymous with snowboarding and the gold medalist returns for her third Olympic Games this year. Returning Olympians Faye Thelen, Red Gerard and Nick Baumgartner are also on Team USA’s snowboarding team.
- Su Yiming (Team China): A history-making gold medalist in 2022’s Games, Su Yiming has been snowboarding since age four and has made a name for himself doing 1,980-degree spins.
Speed Skating
- Jordan Stolz, (Team USA): World record-holder Jordan Stolz is on the hunt for his first Olympic gold medal in the men’s 1,000m, one of four events he’ll be competing in.
- Lim Hyo-jun (Team China): Lim Hyo-jun, who also competes as Lin Xiaojun, previously competed for South Korea and switched to represent China at this year’s Olympic Games after becoming a naturalized Chinese citizen. He last competed at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, where he won a short-track gold medal.
Figure Skating
There are five Olympic figure skating medal events at this year’s Winter Games: men’s singles, women’s singles, pairs, ice dance and the team event.
- Amber Glenn (Team USA): Glenn is coming off her third consecutive US championship title and will be competing in women’s singles.
- Ilia Malinin (Team USA): Reigning men’s World Champion Ilia Malinin, nicknamed the “Quad God” for his ability to land quadruple jumps, is a men’s singles gold medal favorite at this year’s games. He’s the son of Tatiana Malinina, an Olympic skater who competed for Uzbekistan in the 1990s.
- Kaori Sakamoto (Team Japan): Champion figure skater Kaori Sakamoto plans to retire after this year’s Olympics, aiming for gold after earning a bronze medal in the 2022 Winter Games.
- Max Naumov (Team USA): Naumov, the son of former Russian figure skating champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, is also set to compete in men’s singles. Naumov’s parents were among those killed in the American Eagle Flight 5342 crash over the Potomac River last year.
- Deanna Stellato-Dudek and Maxime Deschamps (Team Canada): Stellato-Dudek, now 42, returned to skating after a 16-year hiatus and is now mounting a bid for gold with partner Deschamps.
- Madison Chock and Evan Bates (Team USA): American ice dancing pair Chock and Bates are the subjects of Netflix’s new docu-series Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing, along with Canada’s Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier and France’s Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron.
Ice Hockey
- For the first time since 2014, professional ice hockey players have been named to Olympic national teams. Team USA is comprised of pros from the NHL. In a somewhat impressive stat, there will be at least one NHL player on all 32 teams competing in the Winter Games, including Team Sweden, Team Canada, Team Finland and Team Denmark.
- Laila Edwards (Team USA): In 2023, Laila Edwards became the first Black woman to play for the US women’s national hockey team. She previously competed on the University of Wisconsin women’s ice hockey team, where she earned two national championships under the coaching of Mark Johnson, a member of the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” hockey team.
Who are some of the commentators and performers at the Winter Games?
The 2026 Winter Games Opening Ceremony was a star-studded event hosted by NBC News commentator Terry Gannon and sports 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 also participated.
YouTube creators are on deck sharing behind-the-scenes takes for Team USA, including Jordan Howlett (aka Jordan the Stallion), Hunter and Tara Woodall, Alexa Riviera, Kylie Kelce, MMG and Ashley Alexander.
NBC’s Primetime in Milan coverage is hosted by sportscaster Mike Tirico, who is joined most nights by Snoop Dogg, who made his Olympic commentary debut in Paris. Actor and TV host Stanley Tucci is also on hand to showcase the local cuisine, culture and lifestyle of the Italian towns hosting the Winter Games. Also on the ground in Italy are Elmo, Grover and Cookie Monster and more Muppet friends who will appear in social and broadcast coverage of the Games.
As for the actual sporting events, NBC has enlisted more than 80 commentators and analysts to cover every event. Among them are Tara Lipinski, Johnny Weir and Scott Hamilton, who will cover figure skating; former Olympians Picabo Street and Ted Ligety are providing skiing analysis; and gold medalists White and Lindsey Jacobellis are covering snowboarding.
