Olympics 2026 thread

[drjeff]

Well you can add the GOLD medal Women's Hockey game to the crazy finish category. Game went to overtime with the tying goal only coming with 2 minutes left in regulation game time.

Congratulation to USA women again. GOLD medal women's hockey winners.

Both the mens and women's hockey tournaments the last few days has been crazy good viewing!

 

[MidnightJester]

Have you seen the new Winter Olympic sport "Ski mountaineering" it was a great new ADDITION!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/world/olympics/ski-mountaineering-winter-olympics-sport.html

https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026/news/winter-olympics-2026-an-introduction-to-ski-mountaineering

 

[BenedictGomez]

 

[BenedictGomez]

Maybe a bit obscure, but IYKYK

 

[Zand]

I've watched waaaay too much curling this year lol.

Weirdly I've barely seen any skiing. For whatever reason it seems like it's never on the NBC primetime show and I don't really have any time to watch the stuff that happens early when I'm at work. Also barely seen any hockey which is a shame, but did get to see a good chunk of USA Sweden yesterday.

I am 100% an expert on figure skating at this point though.

 

[abc]

Figure skating is a big disappointment this Olympic. Doping or politics, whatever the excuse, but without the Russians, it’s boring. It’s like watching little league baseball going into extra innings…

 

[Smellytele]

Have you seen the new Winter Olympic sport "Ski mountaineering" it was a great new ADDITION!

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/world/olympics/ski-mountaineering-winter-olympics-sport.html

https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026/news/winter-olympics-2026-an-introduction-to-ski-mountaineering

To be honest I wasn’t a fan of at least the sprint comp from today. Kind of lame. Running up stairs that they call boot packing? Hoping the longer distance races are better.

 

[abc]

I’m ok with the other events being shown though. For once I’m glad they didn’t spent too much time showing figure skating. I saw quite a few alpine skiing. Even more cross country skiing which surprised me. Also saw quite a lot of “stunts”: half pipe, big air, slope style…

I have to applaud NBC’s prime time coverage this time. Almost zero “personal stories”, just run after run, just the SPORT!

 

[MidnightJester]

To be honest I wasn’t a fan of at least the sprint comp from today. Kind of lame. Running up stairs that they call boot packing? Hoping the longer distance races are better.

Apparently the 2026 Winter Olympics feature different lengths of ski mountaineering (skimo) races, focusing on fast-paced formats rather than long-distance endurance. The events include

short, explosive Sprint (~3 minutes, 70m climb)

a longer, 4-lap Mixed Relay (~30 minutes, 140m climb per athlete) (unfortunately the same course it appears)

Olympic Ski Mountaineering Formats:
Sprint Race (Men/Women): A quick, 3-minute event involving a single loop with an uphill climb (including a boot-pack section) and a downhill descent.
Mixed Relay: A team event (one male and one female) where each athlete completes two laps for a total of four, with a total competition time of about 30 minutes

 

[BenedictGomez]

I've watched waaaay too much curling this year lol.

Weirdly I've barely seen any skiing. For whatever reason it seems like it's never on the NBC primetime show and I don't really have any time to watch the stuff that happens early when I'm at work. Also barely seen any hockey which is a shame, but did get to see a good chunk of USA Sweden yesterday.

I am 100% an expert on figure skating at this point though.

You can blame women for the excessive figure skating coverage. At least we did great this time, 2 of 3 golds in the biggest prizes, and ironically the one gold we didnt capture was the one that was "cant miss".

The skiing is tough though with the time difference, because so much of it is very early am to noon starts in Italy, so it's nighttime to early morning here. My Olympic regret is due to bizarre Olympics allocation rules and a lack of funding, we have almost no skier cross & boarder cross participants, as I really love watching those.

 

[BenedictGomez]

Olympic Ski Mountaineering Formats:
Sprint Race (Men/Women): A quick, 3-minute event involving a single loop with an uphill climb (including a boot-pack section) and a downhill descent.
Mixed Relay: A team event (one male and one female) where each athlete completes two laps for a total of four, with a total competition time of about 30 minutes

I feel like SkiMo is a fantastic Olympic sport idea that is being massively botched. It makes some sense to have a sprint competition, but why not have them skin up an entire mountain peak and then race down so it's more like real life?

I'm not suggesting some massive peak, but using Stowe as an example perhaps something like Nosedive? That would be a completely realistic real-life example, and infinitely better than what I saw today, which IMHO was cartoonish and silly with the stair climbing, what was even the point of that, are we replicating ski resort parking lot? And they little ropes they had to move around were weird too.

 

[jimmywilson69]

You're onto something

They replicated every ski resort base area with those steps and the infamous Vail lift mazes!

They should have to navigate the hill outside of Mansfield lodge in ski boots then transition for a climb all the way up nose dive then a ski down lift line.

I agree I was completely dissapointed in the skimo

 

[eatskisleep]

I didn’t know anything about the “Olympic” version until yesterday when my wife told me what she watched and I was like “uhhhh really?? That’s how they do SkiMo??”

 

[LoafSkier19]

Yeah. SkiMo was comically underwhelming compared to what it could’ve been. Especially compared to what BMOM does with Last Man Standing. Although that’s probably too extreme and time consuming for the Olympics.

Definitely learned a new trick to get my skins off faster by watching though

 

[Domeskier]

What’s the deal with the weird bent-at-the-waist form these skimos use on the downhill portion?

 

[jimmywilson69]

they all look like they can barely ski! I think its the skis. They look like super lightweight skis I believe the announcer referred to them as "wet noodles"

They could've and in my opinion should've done something better. if that's what the product is moving forward, I won't watch again. Steps for christ sake...

 

[BenedictGomez]

they all look like they can barely ski! I think its the skis. They look like super lightweight skis I believe the announcer referred to them as "wet noodles"

Yeah, that's another change I would make, they'd have to use "real skis" for this because the skiing isnt even real skiing given they choose featherweight skis for the event as if skiing is an afterthought. From the weird "skiing" I saw, they likely have no torsional rigidity. I would implement a ski weight minimum.

Starting to think I should be president of the governing body of SkiMo.

 

[Smellytele]

Said the same thing to my wife that they ski like shit. To be honest I have seen a few people this year who have skinned up at Bolton and pats peak that I later saw skiing down and thought fuck those people shouldn’t even be on a beginner slope.

 

[jimmywilson69]

we have a guy at Roundtop who honestly could compete in what I saw this week. Dude runs up does a quick change and then poorly skis down. He can and does lap me. . I think he does 6 or 7 laps between 6-8 on the weekends. Its about a 400+ ft climb and ski down.