Five Athletes to Watch at the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics

Photo: Courtesy of U.S Ski Team | Skier: Alex Hall

Eileen Gu's Golden Legacy

Fashion, art, history, culture. Italy is the perfect backdrop for Eileen Gu, a unique athlete who has transcended her sport. When she’s not training, she’s studying quantum physics at Stanford University, shooting global ad campaigns for Louis Vuitton and making appearances at fashion’s biggest events, like the MET Gala in Manhattan and Milan Fashion Week. A true renaissance woman, she’s fluent in both English and Mandarin, plays the piano and in 2024, ran her first marathon. The skiing prodigy was born in San Francisco, California, and was on skis by age three. By nine, she had won the USA Snowboard and Freeski Association junior group. A perfectionist, she excels not at one, but at all three Olympic freeskiing disciplines (halfpipe, slopestyle and big air).

After starting her career competing for the United States, Gu switched her allegiance to her mother’s native country, China, to compete at the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games. She inspired a generation of girls—particularly Chinese and Chinese American—when she became freestyle skiing’s youngest Olympic champion at 18, and the first female athlete to win three freestyle skiing medals in one Olympics. Equally impressive is how she’s handled the success and pressure with the utmost poise and grace. Gu has told the media she loves fear, which is why she throws down some of the biggest, boldest tricks. She was the first woman to land a double cork 1440 in a big air competition and later landed a double cork 1620 on her first attempt of the trick during the Olympic big air final. Gu, now 22, will again represent China at the Milano Cortina Games. She’s coming off an injury sustained in August while training in New Zealand, but given her track record of extreme discipline and hard work, you can bet she’ll be looking to make history in Italy.

Nick Goepper's Reinvention

Nick Goepper is a freeskiing anomaly. The three-time Olympic slopestyle medalist didn’t grow up throwing down tricks on the mountains of Utah or Vermont. Proudly mid-Western, he hails from Indiana and learned to ski on a 400-foot hill. The only man or woman with more than one Olympic slopestyle podium, he thought he’d accomplished all of his dreams after the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, where he took home a silver medal. He was at the top of his game, but was also burnt out and ultimately retired in January 2023.

The hiatus was short lived, however after a few months of soul searching and unbridled fun, he shocked the ski world by announcing that he was coming back, but this time as a halfpipe skier. His competitive fire was still burning and he chose the gnarliest discipline ever to channel it. A specialist changing disciplines at his age is unheard of. But he didn’t just adopt a new sport, the 31-year-old embraced a whole new side of himself. Goepper 2.0 is fun-loving, unfiltered and loves rocking jeans and Pit Vipers on the slopes. He’s also doubled down on training. “I’ve been getting more into endurance activities like hiking, swimming and biking,” he says, “full triathlete over here!” Sending it 18 feet out on a 22-foot, icy halfpipe is more high risk than slopestyle.

His training has been militant and involves visualization and sessioning tricks at “Rollerblade Ranch,” a massive training facility he built on 40 acres in the deserts of west Utah. Goepper says his inline skating obsession has fueled his halfpipe training. “I looked at halfpipe as a project, and I love projects,” he says. “It just so happened it was also extremely fun. I have to be fully invested in something to care about winning and I want to win gold in Italy.” He silenced any doubters in January 2025 when, just 18 months after retirement, he took home the X Games superpipe title, besting veteran Alex Ferreira. “I didn’t think it would be possible, but I believed in myself and I’m going into Italy super excited and with that same mentality,” he says. Only two skiers have ever won both X-games slopestyle and superpipe (Frenchie Candide Thovex followed by American Tanner Hall) and it’s been 17 years since. Not only is Goepper looking to take home gold, he’s hoping to debut some new moves. “I’ve been working on a trick that’s never been done before in competition and I’m excited to launch it this winter,” he says.

Mathilde Gremaud's New Mindset

Swiss phenom Mathilde Gremaud is going for double gold this Olympics. The reigning Olympic slopestyle gold medalist is out to defend her title and hopes to improve upon the big air bronze she took home in Beijing in 2022. She made her first World Cup podium at 16. At 25, she owns the bragging rights for taking home nine X Games medals, a slopestyle World Championship title and is the first woman to land a switch double cork 1440 in competition. She’s also the first woman to win three Crystal Globes in a single World Cup season.

But the pressure of competition took a toll and in January 2025, Gremaud took a brief hiatus from the sport, saying she needed to rediscover the joy in skiing she recalled when she first strapped into skis at age two. “I was a super sore loser as a kid, and I realized with time and experience I am better focusing on myself and making sure I’m still enjoying the sport,” she says. Gremaud works with a psychologist to channel the contest pressure to work to her advantage. “Now I am really just competing against myself,” she proclaims. “I can’t know or control what other athletes are doing. I can control what I’m doing.” After the roller coaster of last year, she says she’s still searching for her rhythm on the slopes. “I’m not sure when I’ll be feeling 100 percent,” she admits, “but I feel safe when I compete, so I look forward to it and see the competition as a chance to show my best and what I have been working on.” In preparation for the Games, she’s been upgrading some of her tricks with new grabs and says she has one trick in particular that she wants to debut this season. “I can’t say what it is, and the conditions have to align perfectly,” she says. “I really hope they do.”

Alex Hall's Anti-Spin Crusade

Alex Hall doesn’t just want to win. He wants to win with style. Leading up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Games, Hall said, “It can’t just all be about spinning,” which is arguably the easiest way for athletes to earn points. He wowed the judges with his creativity, taking home slopestyle gold with a daring move on his first run of the men’s final: A pull back that turned his right double cork 1080 into a 900.

Hall credits his out-of-the-box thinking to his upbringing. He was born in Alaska, grew up in Switzerland and returned to the States to train in Park City, Utah. As a kid, he dabbled in hobbies ranging from soccer to ceramics and at a young age he was building rails out of PVC pipes and wood in his backyard. He never had coaches. He learned by watching videos and adding his own flare to the moves. As a result, his style is distinctly his own and it’s helped him notch 16 World Cup podiums, including two World Championship bronze medals. But competition doesn’t fuel his creativity. Hall, 27, intentionally devotes half of his time to filming backcountry and street skiing segments with friends. That balance of competition and creativity has allowed him to continue pushing innovation in the sport without burning out.

He still sees skiing as self-expression, not just sport. “It’s important for me to have as much fun as possible on my skis,” he says. “I want to keep pushing the creative side of things and improve my style in the tricks I do.” Being half-Italian, he is extra stoked to have the chance to defend his Olympic title at the Milano Cortina Games. “Italy is going to be really sick for the Olympics,” he says. “The snow sports culture there is massive and I think fans will be really excited to have the Games back in Europe. Everyone is so good these days. There’s going to be a lot of young guns and wildcards. We’re going to see a lot of people pushing the sport.”

Megan Oldham's Aerial Assault

Canadian freeskier Megan Oldham has been twisting and flipping since she was a kid. She started skiing at age five but gymnastics and figure skating were her early passions. When her older brother convinced her to try freeskiing, she progressed rapidly thanks to the body awareness she honed tumbling and twirling in those formative years. “My two older brothers were super athletic, so I was always trying to keep up,” she says. “I believe this determination to prove myself from a young age is what fueled my deep-rooted, competitive spirit.”

While attending her first ski camp, she journaled that she wanted to become the first woman to land a triple cork. Her dedication and relentless training paid off and in January 2023 she made history at the Winter X Games, becoming the first female to successfully land the notoriously difficult trick in a ski or snowboard competition. “I find I thrive best under pressure so I find myself the most competitive when the stakes are the highest,” she says. “One thing most people don’t know is that I like to take the mindset of coming in as an underdog to competitions. I perform the best when I feel I have something to prove.” She definitely has something to prove in Italy this winter.

Oldham is out for redemption, having just missed the podium in her Olympic debut in the Women’s Freeski Big Air in 2022. She’s made peace with her fourth-place finish, but she is going after a medal at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Games. “I am extremely excited that the upcoming Olympics will take place in Italy,” she says. “We train and compete regularly in Europe, and something about the Alps is truly magical. I’m sure the spectator excitement and village atmosphere will be electric.” Leading up to the Games, the 24-year-old competitor has devoted more time to working with a trampoline coach. “As a result, I have become a lot more comfortable knowing where I am in the air and spotting within more technical tricks,” she says. “Trampoline training has also been a useful tool for learning to break down bigger tricks into step-by-step progressions.” She’s also been working on visualization. “Before a competition, I stand at the top of the course and visualize my exact slopestyle run, top to bottom, twice,” she says. Oldham wants to go big in Italy, and has been preparing to bring a new switch dub 12 to snow this season, as well as a couple double 14 variations.