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Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.
It’s easy to criticize the International Olympic Committee because, well, they give you a lot to work with on topics such as hypocrisy, inconsistency and pomposity. But an area where the international body deserves praise is recognizing they needed to change their sport program to attract a global audience with more entertainment options than ever before.
That’s the case with the team combined event in alpine skiing, a thrilling watch featuring national teams made up of two skiers (one in the downhill and one in slalom) working together for the best combined times of each pairing. The Milano-Cortina Olympic Games represents the first time the combined event is part of the Olympic program.
The women’s event begins tomorrow — the downhill starts at 4:30 a.m. ET, with the slalom going at 8:30 a.m. ET. One of the American teams features Mikaela Shiffrin, the winningest alpine skier in history, and Milano-Cortina Olympic downhill champion Breezy Johnson. The pair won the first-ever women’s team combined title at the 2025 World Alpine Ski Championships. It’s a big day for Shiffrin, who makes her debut at these Games.
The Italians will be strong with downhill bronze medallist Sofia Goggia pairing with Lara Della Mea. Germany has Milano-Cortina downhill silver medallist Emma Aicher pairing with Kira Weidle-Winkelmann. The U.S. also has an interesting second pair in Jackie Wiles (downhill) and Paula Moltzan (slalom). It’s going to be a fantastic watch.
The men’s team combined event was held on Monday and Switzerland was crowned as Olympic champion behind Franjo von Allmen and Tanguy Neff. It’s the second gold medal for von Allmen (the individual downhill winner), cementing him as one of the biggest stars of the Games after just a couple of days. The silver medal went to two teams — Austria’s Vincent Kriechmayr and Manuel Feller and Switzerland’s Marco Odermatt and Loic Meillard —who produced an identical time of two minutes 45.03 seconds.
Olympic imagery
Lindsey Vonn updated her condition on Monday.
My advice: Rewind for the women’s 1,000-metre skate
If you’ve yet to watch the women’s 1,000-metre long track speed skating race, it’s really worth checking out. Dutch star Jutta Leerdam gets a lot of attention given her 5.4 million followers on Instagram and her annoying fiancé (promoter-boxer Jake Paul) but she’s the real deal as an athlete. Leerdam set an Olympic record as part of the final pair to win gold after her Dutch teammate, sprinting ace Femke Kok, had set the Olympic record in an earlier sprint. The Leerdam-Paul connection ensured that the race would get a ton of attention and respect to the Dutchwoman — a world-class athlete who came through in a pressure cooker. She is scheduled to participate in the 500 metres next Sunday.
Jutta Leerdam of Netherlands new Olympic record time of 1.12:31 was enough to claim the gold medal at Milano-Cortina 2026.
Who will star on Tuesday?
The men’s short program begins in figure skating (12:30 p.m. ET) which means U.S. star Ilia Malinin makes his individual Olympic debut. Malinin is the world’s most dominant figure skater and he possesses that rare ability (e.g. Simone Biles) to make you want to watch a sport you normally don’t follow. In the Olympic team event, Malinin landed only the second official backflip in Olympic figure skating history, and the first one in 50 years. He skates No. 28 in the program and there’s only one skater after him —Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, the 2022 Olympic silver medallist who delivered near-perfect quads in his short program to top Malinin in the short program of the team event.
Chartable
Here’s the list of women’s singles luge winners at the Olympics since 1998. Notice anything?
Germany holds the top two spots at these Games after two runs. The final two runs go Tuesday.
Numbers to know
67.9 — Percentage of The Athletic NHL staff, out of 28 voters, who believe Canada will win a gold medal in men’s hockey
62 — Years that have passed between the U.S. Olympic hockey team having multiple sets of brothers playing together. Brady and Matthew Tkachuk and Jack Hughes and Quinn Hughes are playing for Team USA in Milan.
22 — Age of Emma Aicher, the youngest Olympic downhill medallist since Italy’s Isobel Kostner in 1994.
0 — Individual World Cup wins for Germany’s Philipp Raimund, who won the gold medal in the men’s normal hill ski jumping event with a with a final jump of 106.5 metres and 274.1 points.
What we’re reading around the web
► After four long years. U.S. figure skater reunites with family from war-torn Ukraine at the Olympics. By Dave Skretta of the Associated Press.
► Behind the viral Canada fleece from ‘Heated Rivalry’ — even Olympians want it. By Julian McKenzie of The Athletic.
► ‘Cold’ coach back at Olympics after Valieva scandal. By Sonia Oxley and Emma Smith of BBC Sport.
► Mystery of breaking medals baffles Milano Games organisers. By Karols Grohmann of ReutersHow Casey Wasserman entered Epstein’s orbit and why it might affect his role with the LA28 Olympics (subscription needed). By Jenny Jarvie, Meg James and Dakota Smith of the L.A. Times
► Charlie McAvoy’s Olympic diary: On the opening ceremony, his jaw and, yes, his tweet. By Michael Russo of The Athletic.
► In any other sport, this moment would have created tension between teams. Not in curling. By Julia Frankel of The Associated Press.
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