Swiss-Ski is ready for the winter games

The winter sports highlight of the year – the 2026 Olympic Games – begins on Friday in northern Italy, not far from the Swiss border. The Swiss Olympic delegation includes 85 athletes from Swiss-Ski competing in eight different sports. Expectations are high after the World Cup results so far.

37 medals, including 18 golds, were won by snow sports athletes belonging to a Swiss-Ski squad at the last three Winter Games in Sochi (2014), Pyeongchang (2018), and Beijing (2022). During this period, they accounted for 90 percent of all Swiss medals at the Winter Olympics. Four years ago in China, Swiss snow sports athletes even won all 15 medals for Swiss Olympic.

With Mathilde Gremaud (freeski, slopestyle), Marco Odermatt (alpine skiing, giant slalom), Ryan Regez (ski cross), and Corinne Suter (alpine skiing, downhill), four of the seven Olympic champions from 2022 will also be competing at Milano Cortina 2026. Michelle Gisin (alpine skiing, combined) and Lara Gut-Behrami (alpine skiing, super-G) are absent due to injury, and Beat Feuz (alpine skiing, downhill) ended his career in January 2023.

Swiss Olympic selected a total of 85 athletes from Swiss-Ski for the Games in Northern Italy – most of them in alpine skiing (22), snowboarding (17) and cross-country skiing (12). For the first time ever, more women (43) than men (42) within Swiss-Ski received an Olympic ticket.

So far this World Cup winter, Swiss-Ski athletes have achieved 56 podium finishes across Olympic sports – 36 in alpine skiing, 8 in ski cross, 5 in snowboarding, 3 each in cross-country skiing and aerials, and 1 in freeskiing. Expectations for the respective teams are correspondingly high. "We are traveling to the Winter Games with a lot of energy and conviction. We are coming off a strong season so far and know: our teams are ready," said Walter Reusser, Co-CEO of Sport at Swiss-Ski. "Many of the competition venues are familiar to us – and our athletes have won multiple World Championship or World Cup competitions and celebrated great successes in Bormio, Cortina, Antholz, Livigno, and Val di Fiemme. This experience helps, even though we are aware that the Olympics start from scratch. Our athletes have repeatedly shown that they can handle the high expectations well."

Following the opening ceremony on Friday at the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza (San Siro) in Milan, the first day of competition on February 7th offers a top highlight. The men's downhill race will take place in Bormio, where the Swiss-Ski athletes are among the top favorites. Most of the medal events featuring Swiss-Ski athletes will be held on Sunday, February 15th – six in total.

Livigno, where medals will be contested in snowboarding (alpine, cross, freestyle), ski cross, freeskiing, and aerials, hosts the most Olympic events with Swiss-Ski participation. The Val di Fiemme (Lago di Tesero and Predazzo) will see the Olympic cross-country skiing and ski jumping competitions, while the biathletes will hold their races in Antholz – in the largest Olympic arena of Milano Cortina 2026 (spectator capacity: 19,100 per competition). The situation is unusual for the alpine skiers, where the women's competition (Cortina d'Ampezzo) and the men's (Bormio) are approximately five hours apart by car.

The anticipation for the upcoming season highlight is all the greater because the Winter Olympics are being held in the Alps for the first time in 20 years. Italy is hosting the Winter Games for the third time. The 1956 Winter Olympics took place in Cortina d'Ampezzo, and the 2006 Winter Games were held in Turin.