Title: The 2026 Winter Olympics

By Kylie Franklin

The Winter Olympics have begun, starting February off with an energetic kick. This year the Olympics are being co-hosted by both Milan and Cortina in Italy. The two areas are split up by event types, Milan highlighting the Ice sports and Cortina with the Snow sports. While the opening ceremony was held in Milan, athletes in Cortina were featured in par with their countrymen as they walked through the parade route. The opening ceremony also featured Mariah Carey and returning performer Andrea Bocelli who had performed at the 2006 Winter Olympics held in Turin, Italy. Online the Olympians have posted videos of their walk through, showing an insider perspective of an Olympian. Social media has given viewers a more personal viewing experience, where the athletes can take videos from inside the Olympic village.

In skiing events, the US had won its first medal from Breezy Johnson in Alpine Skiing on February 8^th, who took first followed by Germany and Italy. On February 10^th, Alex Hall secured silver in Freeski Slopestyle. Ben Ogden also secured silver in cross country skiing shortly after. The US Women’s Team Combined locked in a bronze medal for Alpine Skiing. The US mixed doubles curling team wistfully landed silver against Sweden in a gold medal game and later the day would end with Ashley Farquharson making bronze in Women’s Singles Luge.

The Olympics figure skating events were held in the Milano Ice Skating Arena, where team USA was able to clutch a gold medal by one point. This is the second year in a row that the US team has won the team event. US free dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates were just short of winning gold by just a point and a half, cinching silver for the US. Tragically the favored “quad-king” Ilia Malinin fell twice during his program which caused him to place 8^th in the Men’s Singles.

The US Women’s Ice Hockey team has dominated the preliminaries, winning 5-0 consecutively for their past three games. In the quarterfinals the team secured their spot in the semi-finals with a 6-0 win against Italy. While there are multiple athletes from WNY in the Olympics this year, there are two in particular that are on the women’s hockey roster — who by chance happen to share the same name. Hayley Scamurra (#16) was born in Williamsville and Haley Winn (#8) was born in Rochester. The two women have helped push the US Hockey Team through the ranks to be #1 seed overall, and now it is up to the team to secure the position and take-home gold.

This year the Olympics have been interesting to say the least, with typical high stakes mixed in with social media shared between the Olympians and the viewers. With oncoming years there are sure to be new developments within the Olympics, but the determination of the athletes will always remain the same. The 2030 Winter Olympics are set to be held in the French Alps region, starting off a new decade in a beautiful scenic setting. The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held here in the US, hosted in the city of Los Angeles. The two will make for interesting Olympic Venus, creating very different but fitting climates for their respective seasonal sports.