Here's the latest
• Ukrainian DQ’d: Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from Olympic competition over his helmet featuring images of athletes killed during the war in Ukraine. IOC President Kirsty Coventry met with the Ukrainian early Thursday in an attempt to break the impasse, but he stood his ground, resulting in the disqualification.
• Chloe Kim looks for three-peat: US snowboarding star Chloe Kim is going for her third snowboard halfpipe gold medal in a row today in a busy Day 6 of the Games for the Americans.
• Medals aplenty: There are a slew of medals to be awarded today, nine medal events in all on Thursday.
CNN Sports has all of the greatest feats of achievement – and funny anecdotes – from the Games, so sign up for our “Milano Memo” newsletter.
More subdued atmosphere at women's 5000m speed skate
It’s only the sixth day of official action but so much has happened already in these Games.
That might be the reason for the quieter crowds at the women’s 5000m today, that and the fact that it’s a far more steady event compared to the sprints.
The hectic Olympic schedule has all gotten too much for one journalist near me; he’s fallen asleep with his laptop still open.
Wouldn’t want to be him when the party music played between races kicks in shortly.
AIN athlete Marina Zoueva currently tops the leaderboard with a time of 6:57.70. We’re almost halfway through the final already.
US Delegation to attend 2026 Olympic Winter Games closing ceremony
The White House on Wednesday announced the designation of a presidential delegation to travel to Milan, Italy, for the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games on February 22, 2026.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon will lead the delegation, according to the release.
The delegation will include Tilman J. Fertitta, the United States ambassador to the Italian Republic and the Republic of San Marino, and his spouse, Lauren Fertitta, who attended the opening ceremony with Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance earlier this month.
Also attending are Kelly Loeffler, administrator of the US Small Business Administration, Meredith O’Rourke, senior adviser to the president, Bob Book, chairman of Book Capital Enterprises, and Neil Book, chairman, president and chief revenue officer of Jet Support Services, Inc.
The group will also feature Trish Duggan, founder of the Imagine Museum, Diane Hendricks, founder and consulting chairman of ABC Supply Co., Inc. and Ryan Suter, a medalist with the US men’s hockey team at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics.
Why do all Olympic curling stones come from one small island off Scotland’s coast?
Team USA won silver in mixed doubles curling on Tuesday after reaching the event’s final for the first time during the Winter Olympics. In the semifinal against Italy on Monday, American curler Cory Thiesse made the winning shot that knocked the Italian team’s curling stone out of its place.
The strictly regulated curling stones weigh between 38 and 44 pounds (17 and 20 kilograms) and can last decades. One company, Kays of Scotland, handcrafts most professional and all Olympic stones using granite from a single small uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland.
Granite from Ailsa Craig is exceptionally fine-grained; its minerals are arranged in such a way that tightly knits them together. This density makes the granite particularly resilient to collisions and allows it to be polished to a finish smooth enough to glide on ice. The unique mineral composition also gives the stones an intrinsic ability to curl along their trajectory.
“It’s not just about the ability to withstand chips and cracks. It also has to do with how it moves on the ice and how the stones bounce when they hit each other,” said Dr. Bob Gooday, a geological analyst at National Museums Scotland. “Professional curlers have used other kinds of stones, which slide perfectly well, but when they hit each other, they don’t bounce quite the same.”
Read more about why all curling stones come from Ailsa Craig here.
NHL returns to Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina after controversial buildup
The superstars of the NHL will return to Winter Olympic action later on Wednesday, bringing with them thousands of fans from across the world, but it’s been far from a smooth buildup to the Games.
It’s been 12 years since the NHL last featured at the Olympics – the league opted out of the 2022 Games because of the pandemic and decided against allowing players to compete at the 2018 edition, saying the competition would disrupt the hockey season.
Now, though, they are not only competing, but they’re coming in droves – each of the 32 NHL teams will have at least one representative at the Games.
The excitement in Milan is palpable then, with the men’s tournament starting with Slovakia taking on Finland on Wednesday, before Team USA gets its campaign underway against Latvia on Thursday.
Find out more about NHL players’ return to the Games here.
Ukrainian skater Oleh Handei told to tape over message on helmet — Reuters
Ukrainian short track speed skater Oleh Handei said in an interview with Reuters Thursday that he was told to tape over an inspirational message on his helmet at the Olympics because it was seen as linked to the war with Russia.
“They saw my sentence and they said to me, ‘Sorry, but it’s war propaganda,’” he told Reuters, adding he would comply with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ruling in order to compete.
The 26-year-old, who is set to compete in Saturday’s men’s 1500m short track speed skating quarterfinals in Milan, had a message on his helmet reading: “Where there is heroism, there can be no final defeat.”
The words are a quote from Ukrainian writer Lina Kostenko which Handei said motivated him, but it reportedly breaks IOC rules which prevent athletes from making political statements.
Handei told Reuters he didn’t want to go public with what happened, but after Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych was disqualified from competition over his helmet that honored his dead compatriots, he decided to speak out.
“He (Heraskevych) just reminds us, reminds the world that we actually exist as a country,” he told Reuters.
“We exist as a people, as humans, so we need some support, we need some understanding.”
Stage is set for women's 5000m speed skate
I’ve really enjoyed the drama and high-speed action at the Milano Speed Skating Arena during these Games so far and I’m back again today for the women’s 5000m final.
The crowds haven’t turned up in their hordes for this event, perhaps fatigued after last night’s incredible action in the men’s 1000m final.
There is still a huge Dutch presence, though, and the stadium announcer is trying to get them bouncing. We’ve had back-to-back Lady Gaga tunes so far and I’m currently typing through a very over-the-top light show.
A total of 12 women are competing for gold and action gets underway shortly.
History is made at curling
Rich Ruohonen made history here today, despite the US men’s curling team going down to Switzerland, as the 54-year-old personal injury attorney from Minnesota is officially the oldest ever American Winter Olympian.
Ruohonen came in as an alternate for the eighth and final end, subbing in for CNN favorite Aidan Oldenburg. He joked afterward to his team: “I’m never throwing a stone again.”
Ruohonen started competing for the St. Paul Curling Club in the fifth grade and now, as the very senior member of Team USA, is usually the one picking up the tab or making omelettes.
He’s a two-time US champion but before 2026, was 0-for-6 on making Olympic teams. Now, he’s finally done it.
Nordic combined is facing decline. Its savior could be finally allowing women to compete
A little more than a week before the 2026 Winter Olympics were set to begin, Annika and Niklas Malacinski dialed into a Zoom call from their World Cup event in Austria. The sibling tandem from Steamboat Springs, Colorado, are among the best in the US in Nordic combined, which combines perhaps the most disparate sports possible: cross-country skiing and ski jumping.
While its peculiar sport partnering is a worthwhile trivia stumper, Nordic combined is one of the 16 original Winter Olympics events, dating back to the Games’ origins in 1924 in Chamonix, France.
It’s also the only winter sport to never allow women to compete at the Games.
Which means Niklas, ranked 29th in the world, will be part of Team USA in Milan-Cortina; Annika, ranked 10th, will not.
Read more about the existential Games crisis that the sport is having here.
One of the greatest skiers ever, Mikaela Shiffrin has pressure heading into rest of Games
Sitting to the side of the finish line area at Olympia delle Tofane, Jacqueline Wiles watched Mikaela Shiffrin step into the starting gate for the final slalom run of the women’s combined and thought to herself what everyone else at the mountain was thinking.
“We were asking for a miracle,’’ Wiles said.
Two days earlier, Wiles left the mountain in tears, finishing in the single worst place in an Olympic event – fourth. Now she and her partner, Paula Moltzan, sat third, but with the single greatest slalom skier about to attack the mountain, Wiles was staring at yet another bridesmaid finish.
What happened next is what makes the Olympics so unexpectedly compelling. Shiffrin, winner of 71 slalom World Cup victories and a gold medal in the event, started slowly and skied tentatively to finish 15th out of 18 skiers, her worst place since March 17, 2012. Her time – 1:36.59 – was so far behind that, even when tagged with Breezy Johnson’s first-place downhill run, the Americans slid to fourth.
Wiles and Moltzan held on to their bronze medal, celebrating their victory. At the same time, Shiffrin, shoulders slumped, accepted a comforting hug from Johnson. “It’s OK,’’ Johnson told her.
Read more about the pressure on Shiffrin’s shoulders heading into her solo competitions here.
German serenade at curling
The German fans are enjoying themselves aplenty here at the Cortina Curling Centre. Along with chanting back and forth to stands across the arena – “Deutsch-land!” – they have done a hum-along version of “Hey, Jude.”
This is especially amusing since Great Britain is also competing in this round-robin session against Sweden, and sort of own the unofficial copyright on the Beatles.
There’s also an entire row of German fans wearing red, yellow and black clown wigs. It feels a little more like a soccer match than curling right now – guys, just wait for the World Cup in a few months’ time, please – way different than the dead silence of the mixed-doubles gold match earlier this week.
This teenager is making history for the Philippines at the 2026 Games
The Winter Olympics are a stage for some of sports’ most inspiring stories, and the 2026 Milan Cortina Games are no exception.
When Filipina alpine skier Tallulah Proulx takes to the slopes, she will not only be the first woman to represent the Philippines at a Winter Olympics, but also the youngest ever Winter Olympian from the nation at just 17 years old.
“I can’t even believe that I’m going. I don’t think it’s fully hit me yet and I don’t think it will until I’m actually there,” she recently told CNN.
Despite growing up in California, Proulx learned skiing when her family regularly took her to Sierra-at-Tahoe, a ski resort in the north of the state. By the age of seven, she was competing in events, and her Olympic dream was born.
“I’m just beyond excited and I hope that people continue supporting me even after the Olympics,” she says. “And I hope to represent the Philippines in a positive light and spread my love of the sport and love of sports in general to the Philippines.”
In just 25 years, dozens of places will be too warm to host the Winter Olympics
Jessie Diggins is an endurance athlete. The Olympic cross-country skier describes the intensity of suffering her sport can inflict as a “pain cave.” It doesn’t frighten her; she’s used to digging deep, she can control the pain. What does terrify her, however, is how rapidly her sport is changing because of something completely out of her control: climate change.
She sees the effects everywhere. “I’ve raced World Cups where it was pouring rain and there was barely a strip of snow to ski on, entire seasons were reshaped overnight,” Diggins said. It’s become impossible to hold a winter sporting event without fake snow, she wrote in a blog.
The Milan Cortina Winter Games in the Italian Alps, which will mark Diggins’ final Games, are no different. Snowmaking machines were busy pumping out snow for weeks.
As humans continue to burn planet-heating fossil fuels, winter is changing: Snowfall is declining, snowpack is shrinking and temperatures are rising in many places. Where once mountains were blanketed in thick white powder, many lie bare well into winter.
For those who rely on snow for their livelihoods, every ski season is a nail-biter. For the Winter Olympics, it’s a high-cost, high-stress disaster. Climate change is “reshaping winter sport as we know it,” said a spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee.
As athletes compete in Italy, the future of the Winter Olympics hangs in the balance. People are not just questioning how to keep the Games alive, but whether they should be kept alive at all.
Read and see more about how climate change is imperilling the future of the Winter Games here.
Austria's Alessandro Hämmerle wins gold in dramatic snowboard cross
Alessandro Hämmerle has retained his Olympic snowboard cross crown after a nail-biting final.
The Austrian bided his time before making a late dash to the front where he slid across the finish line narrowly ahead.
The 32-year-old knew he had won straight away, pumping his fist and screaming with delight. Defending his Olympic crown is no mean feat in a sport as unpredictable as this.
Canada’s Eliot Grondin finished with the silver medal with Austria’s Jakob Dusek claiming bronze.
Nick Baumgartner misses out on snowboard cross medals
Team USA’s Nick Baumgartner just missed out on making the snowboard cross final, falling short of qualification after a photo-finish in the semifinal.
The 44-year-old narrowly finished third, with Austria’s Alessandro Hämmerle just sneaking into second to secure his place in the final.
Baumgartner has done so much for the sport, but fell just short of an individual medal in his fifth Olympics. He’ll go again in the mixed team event, though, where he’s the defending champion.
Word of the Week: The adorable, lethal "stoat" is the face of the Winter Olympics
Tina and Milo — the sibling mascots representing the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, respectively — have been bouncing around Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, chopping it up with Snoop Dogg and cheering on athletes from the stands.
Grinning, plushie versions are now coveted pieces of Olympics merch, and the organizers have assigned the slender, sharp-eyed creatures distinct personalities and interests: Tina, with her cream-colored fur, has developed an affinity for curling; the brown-coated Milo, whose official biography says he was born missing one paw, is prone to playing practical jokes.
In Italian, Tina and Milo are called “ermellini.” For English-speaking Olympic fans, though, the word being used is “stoats.”
“Stoat” — a word first recorded in the 1400s and which stems from the Middle English “stote” — is one of the English names for a small predatory mammal, Mustela erminea, with a short, black-tipped tail, found not only in the Italian Alps but across a broad stretch of Europe, Asia and North America. Stoats are six to 12 inches long, with brown coats that, in some subspecies, turn white in the winter except for the black tail tip.
Small though they are, stoats belong to the famously fierce mustelid family, a carnivorous classification that also includes otters, ferrets and wolverines.
Read more about stoats here or watch the video below.
What are stoats and how did they become the mascots for the 2026 Winter Olympics? CNN’s Antonia Mortensen introduces Tina, Milo and the six snowdrops named "The Flo."
Apple, biscuit and twig: Explaining hockey’s unique jargon you’ll hear at Milan Cortina
From brushing ice in curling, to flying down an ice track headfirst in skeleton, the Winter Olympics are home to some unique and exciting sports that feature uncommon vernacular.
New sports have been added to the program and with that come new terms or nicknames for tactics, maneuvers or objects that beginner fans might not be familiar with.
Even in hockey – a sport that is extremely popular around the world – there are terms used by commentators or pundits that you might not be accustomed to hearing if not a regular to the sport.
So below, we look at some of the sport-specific lingo and explain what the terms mean so you’ll be ready to impress your friends and follow the action in Milan Cortina, especially as the men’s hockey competition, featuring NHL players for the first time in 12 years, kicks off.
An apple: an assist.
Bar down: when the puck strikes the crossbar from a shot and ends up in the goal.
Between the pipes: where the goalie presides.
Deke: a skill where a player feints to draw an opposing player out of position or to skate by an opponent while maintaining possession and control of the puck.
Flamingo: when a player lifts one leg, standing like a flamingo, to get out of the way of a shot.
Lid: a player’s helmet.
Tape-to-tape: a very accurate pass going from the tape of the passer’s stick to the tape of the receiver’s stick.
See a full list of hockey jargon terms you need to know here.
Want to train like a Winter Olympics athlete? Here’s what to eat, when and how often
As some of the world’s top athletes gather in northern Italy for the 2026 Winter Olympics, many may enjoy the country’s pasta and pizza while sticking closely to their optimal nutrition routines and plans.
For many Olympians, knowing when and what to eat can be just as crucial as the hours spent training on the ice, snow or track.
Inside the Milan Olympic Village’s main dining hall, where athletes and team officials gather throughout the day, there are various menus tailored to athletes’ nutritional needs and cultural preferences. The scale of the operation includes preparing about 3,000 eggs and approximately 450 kilograms (almost 1,000 pounds) of pasta each day, according to the Olympics website.
The main dining hall serves about 3,400 meals per day, across six food stations — and those meals go hand in hand with training.
Nutrition supports the “actual physical training” and fuels peak performance, said Kristen Gravani, a performance and food allergy dietitian at Stanford University who has worked with numerous Olympic athletes.
Of course, due to how active they are, most Olympic athletes probably consume and burn more energy than the average person. For instance, during his Olympic training, US competitive swimmer Michael Phelps claimed to consume 10,000 calories in a day, and Jamaican sprinter Yohan Blake said 16 ripe bananas every day were his secret for running.
But calorie intake and extreme eating habits aside, there are some key practices in Olympic athletes’ training and nutrition that the average person can emulate.
Read more about Olympic diets here.
Swedish one-two in women's cross-country skiing 10km interval start
Sweden’s Frida Karlsson claimed a second gold medal of these Games, pipping fellow Swede Ebba Andersson to first place and win the women’s cross-country skiing 10km interval start free with a monumental effort.
Karlsson collapsed in a heap as she crossed the line, posting a winning time of 22:49.2. With the victory, the 26-year-old also won the 10km + 10km skiathlon earlier in the Olympics.
American Jessie Diggins’ extraordinary effort was enough to clinch a late bronze medal with a time of 23:38.9 – the fourth Olympic medal of her illustrious career.
The American fell to the ground, yelling in pain, right after finishing, demonstrating just how grueling this long-distance event is.
“I’m the happiest bronze medalist in the world. I’m so grateful for everyone getting me here,” she said after the race. “It’s taken a serious team effort to get to the start line and a lot of help once I got to the finish line, because I’ve been in a lot of pain.
Mathilde Gremaud tells CNN she was “smiling and giggling” after freeski slopestyle gold
Before dropping down for her third and final run in the women’s freeski slopestyle, Swiss skier Mathilde Gremaud already knew she had won gold.
She had watched her closest rival, Eileen Gu, fall on her final attempt, which meant no one could surpass her score.
So, draped in a Swiss flag, Gremaud performed a victory run for the fans and was able to fully enjoy the moment in front of her friends and family.
“That run was really fun, I was really smiling and giggling the whole way. That was definitely a lot of fun. I was just so happy,” she told CNN Sports on Tuesday, a day after her gold medal moment.
Things almost turned out very differently, though. Gremaud had two scares in the buildup to the competition after falling twice in practice, once just before her first proper run.
Instead of knocking her confidence, though, she said it did the opposite.
“It released a lot of pressure for me,” she added. “When that happened, I thought, ‘OK, that was the last hurdle for me on the way, now let’s try to feel as free as I can.’
“It was terrifying at first, but then the pressure released and helped me feel better.”
Monday’s competition was yet another chapter in the ongoing rivalry between Gu and Gremaud, with the pair pushing the sport to another level.
“We were able to get the best out of each other. We couldn’t have done it without the other,” Gremaud said. “Our sport is still a niche sport, but we’re trying to make it bigger. Eileen is definitely a big help for that.”
Four eyes to four eyes love
Catching some men’s round-robin curling this afternoon. I have a new hero: Aidan Oldenburg, who sports a red bandana for competition. It is as fantastic as it is unexpected.
The glasses-wearing Oldenburg also got a shout-out from another famously bespectacled Olympian. Stephen Nedoroscik, the men’s gymnastics hero from Paris, shared a reel sending good vibes to Oldenburg.
The US is taking on Switzerland now in the men’s round robin session 2. Another good crowd of Americans at the Cortina Curling Center.
