25 athletes to watch in the Beijing Winter Olympics

Ester Ledecká (Czech Republic): Four years ago, Ledecká became the first athlete in history to compete in both snowboarding and alpine skiing in the same Olympics. And she won gold in both, winning the super-G skiing event and then following it up with a victory in parallel giant slalom. It had been 90 years since anyone claimed gold in two different sports at the same Winter Games. Now 26, Ledecká will try to make history in what is her third Olympics.

Erin Jackson (United States): Jackson, the world's top-ranked speedskater in the 500 meters, stumbled at the US trials and failed to qualify for the Olympics. But the winner of that race, veteran Brittany Bowe, gave her spot to Jackson and said "no one's more deserving." Jackson, 29, said she was "grateful and humbled" by Bowe's kindness. It ended up working out for both skaters in the end; some nations returned their Olympic quota spots, opening up an extra spot that would allow both Jackson and Bowe to compete. Bowe, 33, already was set to race in the 1,000 and 1,500 meters.

Johannes Høsflot Klæbo (Norway): Norway has dominated cross-country skiing in the Olympics. The most decorated Winter Olympian of all time, Marit Bjørgen, was a cross-country skier from Norway. But she retired after the 2018 Games, and now Klæbo will try to pick up where she left off. The 25-year-old had a great start in 2018, winning three golds in his Olympic debut in South Korea. He also won multiple titles at the most recent World Championships.

Yuzuru Hanyu (Japan): Hanyu, one of the greatest male figure skaters in history, is looking for his third straight Olympic gold in singles. He was just 19 at the 2014 Sochi Games, where he became figure skating's youngest Olympic champion since 1948. He also became the first Asian skater to win the men's singles title. Hanyu's fans throw Winnie the Pooh bears on the ice after he performs; the tradition started after he began carrying a tissue box in the shape of the character back in 2010.

Chloe Kim (United States): Kim, an American snowboarder, was one of the breakout stars from the 2018 Winter Games, winning gold in the halfpipe at the age of 17. Four years later, she's favored to defend her title. Kim also won gold at the last two World Championships.

Mikaela Shiffrin (United States): Shiffrin has been the face of American skiing for years now, and she's still at the height of her powers. The 26-year-old, who's won Olympic gold twice, leads the World Cup overall standings and recently won her 47th World Cup slalom race — that's the most World Cup victories ever in a single discipline. Shiffrin is also the defending world champion in the combined event, which is the slalom plus the downhill. She will be a medal threat in several events.

Ryōyū Kobayashi (Japan): The ski jumping competitions could be wide open this year, especially after Poland's Kamil Stoch — a three-time Olympic champion — recently suffered an ankle injury in training. Kobayashi, 25, has been in great form and recently won three of the four events at the prestigious Four Hills Tournament. Also watch out for Germany's Karl Geiger, who recently overtook Kobayashi in the World Cup standings, and Norway's Robert Johansson, who won three Olympic medals in 2018.

Arianna Fontana (Italy): Fontana, seen at left, has won eight Olympic medals. That's tied for the most ever by a short-track speedskater. Her specialty is the 500 meters, which she won in 2018 and has medaled in the last three Olympic Games. Fontana was the youngest Italian to win a Winter Games medal when she won a bronze at the age of 15 in 2006. She's now 31.

Johannes Thingnes Boe (Norway): Boe has won the last three World Cup titles in the biathlon, a discipline that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. He won three Olympic medals in 2018, including a gold in the 20-kilometer event. The 28-year-old will be among the favorites in China, especially after the retirement of legendary French biathlete Martin Fourcade.

Wu Dajing (China): Wu won China's only gold medal in the 2018 Olympics, breaking the world record in the 500-meter short-track race. He finished with a time of 39.584 seconds, becoming just the second person in history to skate the race under 40 seconds. Wu, 27, has won four Olympic medals in his career, including a silver in the 500 in 2014.

Natalie Geisenberger (Germany): Geisenberger, 34, is the most decorated female luger in Olympic history, winning five medals over three Winter Games. Four of the five medals are gold; she has won the singles and team events in each of the last two Olympics.

Nathan Chen (United States): If anyone is favored to end Yuzuru Hanyu's reign in men's figure skating, it is the 22-year-old Chen, who has won three straight world titles. Chen, the first skater ever to land five quadruple jumps in a routine, was expected to challenge for gold at the 2018 Olympics, but he stumbled in the short program and finished a disappointing fifth.

Anna Hasselborg (Sweden): Hasselborg, 32, was the skip of the gold-medal-winning curling team at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea. She'll be back in China along with teammates Sara McManus, Agnes Knochenhauer and Sofia Maberg. Swedish women have won three curling golds at the Olympics, the most of any nation.

Kamila Valieva (Russian Olympic Committee): Valieva is only 15 years old, but she comes in as the favorite this year in women's figure skating. She won the Russian national championship in December and followed that up with a European title in January, breaking her own world-record score in the short program. She's just the fourth female figure skater to land a quadruple jump in competition, and she's the second to land a quadruple toe loop. She'll be pushed by two other Russian teenagers that she trains with: Alexandra Trusova and defending world champion Anna Shcherbakova.

Alexis Pinturault (France): Pinturault, 30, is the reigning World Cup champion in alpine skiing, and he is looking to add an Olympic gold medal to go with the silver he won in 2018. He finished just .23 seconds behind Austria's Marcel Hirscher in the combined event. Hirscher is now retired. if Pinturault wins gold, he would be France's first alpine skiing champion in 16 years.

Ireen Wüst (Netherlands): The Dutch are renowned for their speedskating program, and Wüst is the greatest of them all. No long-track speedskater has won more Olympic medals than she has (11). Five of those medals are gold, including one from 2018 in the 1,500 meters. She's won a gold medal at every Winter Olympics since 2006.

Sui Wenjing and Han Cong (China): Sui and Han, one of the best figure skating pairs in the world, will be among the host nation's best hopes for a gold medal. They missed out by just .43 points four years ago, finishing with the silver. They bounced back with gold at the World Championships in 2019.

Lindsey Jacobellis (United States): Jacobellis, seen at right, is heading to her fifth Olympic Games at age 36, and she's still looking for that elusive gold medal in snowboard cross. Jacobellis had the gold medal in the bag in 2006 when she went for a showoff move on a jump and then fell. She finished with the silver and shrugged off the finish, saying: "Snowboarding is fun. I was having fun."

Francesco Friedrich (Germany): Friedrich, left, piloted two bobsleds to Olympic gold in 2018, winning both the two-man and four-man events. (The two-men event actually ended in a tie for first.) Friedrich, 31, was the sixth driver in history to win the two-man and the four-man events in the same Olympics.

Timothy LeDuc (United States): LeDuc, 31, is set to become the first openly nonbinary athlete to compete at a Winter Olympics. LeDuc will compete in pairs figure skating along with 26-year-old Ashley Cain-Gribble, and the US champions' outfits challenge gender stereotypes. "My hope is that the narrative shifts more to queer people can be open and successful in sports," LeDuc said recently. "We've always been here, we've always been a part of sports. We just haven't always been able to be open."

Martins Dukurs (Latvia): Dukurs, 37, has been a dominant force in skeleton for years, winning six world championships and 11 World Cup titles, including the last three. But the one thing that has eluded him has been Olympic gold. He won silver in 2010 and 2014 before finishing fourth in 2018.

Marie-Philip Poulin (Canada): Poulin, one of the greatest women's hockey players of all time, received the nickname "Captain Clutch" after scoring the game-winning goals in both the 2010 and 2014 Olympic finals. She also scored in the 2018 gold-medal game, but the Canadians lost to the United States in a dramatic penalty shootout. Poulin, 30, will lead Team Canada again in China.

Shaun White (United States): White has been the face of snowboarding since 2006, when he won gold in his Olympic debut and was known as the "flying tomato" because of his flowing red hair. He has won gold in the halfpipe event three times, and his most recent win in 2018 prompted an emotional celebration. At 35, this is likely to be his last Olympics, and he will be looking to go out on top. But he'll face stiff competition from a talented field that includes Japan's Yuto Totsuka, the defending world champion.