2026 Olympic Games: Follow Canada in jam-packed Day 1 with medal hopes in snowboard big air, speed skating

Huge home-snow interest in men’s downhill

Hi, I’m Jan Zeschky, a copy editor with the live page team. It’s only Day 1 and one of the Olympics’ marquee events — and its first medal event — is underway: the men’s downhill. 

There’s huge home-snow interest here in the shape of Dominik Paris, the Italian who has won more victories on the demanding Stelvio course than any other person. The crowd will be roaring on Paris and compatriots Giovanni Franzoni and Florian Schieder, who are all riding high in the downhill standings this season. 

But they’ll have a strong challenge for gold from Swiss pair Marco Odermatt and Franjo von Allmen, who are leading the season’s downhill standings.

Then there are the Canadian challengers. Can Cameron Alexander, Brodie Seger or Jack Crawford — who missed out on a medal in this event in Beijing 2022 by just 0.07 seconds — pull off an upset and become only the third Canadian to reach the downhill podium after Steve Podborski (1980) and Edi Podivinski (1994)?