The Winter Olympics start in Milan-Cortina on Friday and run until February 22. Who are the most prominent stars waiting for the winter gold?

Published on: 02/06/2026 - 07:07 Last updated: 02/06/2026 - 07:26

The Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics open on Friday and all eyes will be on a number of world champions in cold weather sports.

Here is an overview of the most prominent athletes expected in this tournament:

Alpine skiing: Americas Vonn and Shiffrin

After six years of retirement and a right knee replaced with a titanium joint, American Lindsey Vonn, winner of 84 World Cup wins and Olympic downhill champion in 2010, will return to the highest levels in 2025, at the age of forty-one.

Her goal was to participate in her fifth Olympics, 24 years after her first appearance in 2002.

Everything was going well until January 30, when she fell hard in a downhill race in Crans Montana (Switzerland), tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee.

But she said defiantly on Tuesday: “I will be on the starting line” on Sunday in the downhill race. A new challenge for an exceptional champion who may also participate in the combined race and the super long slalom (Super G).

The star of these other games on Cortina's tracks is her compatriot Mikaela Shiffrin, a five-time Crystal Ball champion and record holder with 108 World Cup victories.

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She will try to avenge herself after the disappointing 2022 Olympics, when she went without a podium in six races and crashed out of the track three times.

Alpine skiing: Swiss Marco Odermatt, king of the mountains

At the age of 28, the multi-talented Swiss stands at the top of his game, and his vast appetite does not leave a crumb for his competitors. He achieved four consecutive World Cup overall rankings. He continued his almost perfect performance in the first half of the season, although he settled for “second place” in Kitzbuhl, the legendary downhill race that is still difficult for his talent.

If Odermatt asserts this dominance at the Games, he will become a definitive champion among the legends of the sport. But so far, he has only one Olympic medal in his locker: the gold in the long or giant slalom in Beijing 2022, after he missed a gate in the super-G and finished seventh in the downhill race.

Biathlon: Italian Vittuzzi at home

Lisa Vituzzi, world leader in 2024, is one of the most awaited stars by the Italian public.

After suffering from back problems, she abandoned the 2024-2025 season in order to return to full fitness for the Olympics on her home soil.

Although she has not regained her full dominance, the 30-year-old Italian, who is ranked seventh in the world, has shown remarkable development, and has climbed to the podium four times in the last two stages of the World Cup. Public support will be an important factor in her quest for an Olympic medal.

Read also: Winter Olympics 2026: Italy displays the medals that will be awarded to the athletes

Figure skating: American Ilya Malinin...an innovative champion

Since his emergence on the international scene in 2022, Ilya Malinin has imposed himself as a new phenomenon in global figure skating.

He is a two-time world champion and two-time Grand Prix Final winner, and at the age of 21 he has an impressive record.

But the young American, the son of a family of Uzbek professional skaters, stood out not only with his results, but also with his desire to innovate and expand the boundaries of the sport. He is the first, and so far the only, skater to succeed in performing the quadruple Axel jump, the most difficult in this sport. Therefore, his exit from Milan without gold seems a huge surprise.

Cross-country skiing: Norwegian Johannes Klebo... champion of all races

"Full marks!" At the age of 29, Norwegian Johannes Klebo achieved a historic achievement at the World Championships in Trondheim in March 2025, when he won all six titles, from short to long distances, individually and collectively, and in a group start or against the clock, in the classic and freestyles.

As the holder of five Olympic titles (two in 2022 and three in 2018), and with the continued absence of internationally suspended Russian competitors, he will aspire to equal or even exceed the record of eight winter gold medals set by his compatriots Marit Bjørgen and Bjørn Dele (cross-country skiing) and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen (biathlon).

Free Snowboard: American Chloe Kim... star of “Half Pipe”

American Chloe Kim, the halfpipe star, is seeking her third consecutive Olympic title in this discipline, after being crowned in 2018, when she was under eighteen, and then in 2022.

After the China Games, Kim decided to stop competing in the 2022-2023 season. But she returned strongly in early 2024, and won the “X Games” title for the seventh time in her career in Aspen (United States) with a performance that witnessed unprecedented movement.

Last winter, she returned to victories in the World Cup, before being crowned world champion in the half-pipe.

France 24/AFP

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