Lindsey Vonn hits 2026 Winter Olympics slopes for first time with torn ACL
American star Lindsay Vonn participated in an official Olympic training event for Women’s downhill skiing on Friday, hitting the slopes at the Winter Games for the first time after rupturing her left ACL when she crashed in a World Cup race in the Swiss Alps a week ago.
Friday’s run was the first official downhill training to take place ahead of the Games, after an event scheduled for Thursday was canceled due to the weather.
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Vonn completed the run without any apparent issues. Her first competitive Olympic event, the women’s downhill, is scheduled for Sunday.
Read more about Vonn’s first run in Milan here.
Meet the 2026 Winter Olympic mascots, the Milano Cortina stoats Tina and Milo
An animal most people have never heard of — the stoat — is the mascot for the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.
Drawings of Tina the stoat, the Olympic mascot, and her brother Milo, the Paralympic mascot, were designed by students of the Istituto Comprensivo of Taverna, according to the Olympics. The adorable mascots embody “the Italian spirit that inspires them.”
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Tina and Milo are joined by six snowdrop flowers that the Olympics called “The Flo.”
Who is the host of the 2026 Winter Olympics?
The 2026 Winter Olympics, officially the XXV Winter Olympic Games, will be co-hosted by Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in northern Italy. It is the first Olympic Games to be officially co-hosted by two cities.
Milan will primarily host the ice events, while the remaining events be hosted in clusters around Cortina and the Valtellina and Fiemme valleys. Milan and Cortina are about 250 miles apart by road, nearly a five-hour drive.
Italy first hosted the Winter Olympics in 1956 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, followed by the 2006 Games in Turin. The country has also hosted the Summer Olympics once, in Rome in 1960.
The first Winter Olympics were held in 1924 in Chamonix, France
When are the 2026 Winter Olympics?
The 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics will run from Feb. 6 to Feb. 22, although a few events are being held before the official opening day.
The Games will showcase 116 events on ice and snow, in eight sports and 16 disciplines, including alpine skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, and the debut of ski mountaineering, known as skimo.
The Paralympics will take place the following month, from March 6 to March 15.
How to watch the 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony
The 2026 Winter Olympics opening ceremony will be broadcast in the U.S. on NBC. It will be streamed on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com at 2 p.m. ET. It will last about three hours.
The network says an enhanced encore presentation of the opening ceremony will be broadcast on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.
Read more here.