2026 Winter Olympics in Italy

Over the past few winters, where I live — in one of the country’s winter sport meccas — there have been a whole lot more people packing skins and stepping into the backcountry.

Trails once quiet, save for the sinuous whoosh of a lone ski line, are suddenly dotted with fresh tracks. Backcountry skiing — long a niche pursuit of hardcore alpinists and telemark nostalgists — has spilled into the mainstream.

Generally speaking, the athlete stories that come out of the Olympic Games are about the countless hours spent on the ice, on the slopes, and at the gym; the multitude of personal sacrifices made and the support systems that made it all possible; the training routines and nutrition regimens they’ve adhered to with endless discipline; and how all of that comes down to these special moments.

But the stories coming out of the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics so far are… weird. Unhinged, even. There’s a chaotic energy that feels different from previous years. Sure, there are always funny viral moments, but when was the last time there was teammate-on-teammate credit card fraud, accusations of dick doping, or public admissions of adultery in the first few days?

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Editor’s note: This story includes descriptions of sexual assault.

Editor’s note, February 9, 1:20 pm: This piece on Ilia Malinin was published before the 2026 Winter Olympics began. At the figure skating team event over the weekend — a competition that featured men’s, women’s, pairs, and ice dancing — Malinin came in second in the short program and helped the US team take gold by winning his free skate with a score of 200.03 points. The phenom will compete in men’s individual figure skating, which begins on Tuesday, February 10.

Figure skating is nothing without tension. Humans speed across slick ice, balancing on a thin metal blade and making sharp turns. The athletes defy physics, jumping and twisting their bodies in the air, seemingly faster than you can blink. Millimeters can mean the difference between success and splat, risk goes hand in hand with reward, and winning or losing can come down to decimal points.

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Vox loves the Olympics. Absolutely loves them. We briefly debated popping up a limited-run Winter Olympics newsletter this week, but then remembered that we are not in fact a sports site and have no actual sports reporters on staff.

Editors note: This story originally ran during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and is being reshared as part of coverage of the Milan 2026 Winter Olympic Games

Olympic athletes: They’re not like us. They eat differently; they sleep differently; and they definitely think differently.

Editors note: This story originally ran during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and is being reshared as part of coverage of the Milan 2026 Winter Olympic Games

As a child, Brian Hankerson daydreamed not of watching television or getting into trouble with friends after school. He wanted to high jump. A grade school-aged Hankerson would rush home from class, set up a fishing pole supported by two chairs, lay out a blanket beneath it, and hurtle his body over the makeshift setup.

Winter ice sports depend on this one fact: Ice is slippery.

The low friction of ice is why speedskaters can reach 35 mph, why figure skaters can twirl in dizzying circles, and why a 40-pound curling stone can glide and accomplish whatever the heck the point of curling is.

Editor’s note, February 6, 2025: This story originally ran during the 2018 Winter Olympics and is being reshared as part of coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Ever wondered how biathlon came to be? Although it’s a popular sport in Europe, the combination of ski racing and rifle shooting strikes many Americans as odd and unfamiliar. But, it turns out, biathlon isn’t a Frankenstein sport that came out of nowhere. In fact, it has a long military history that stretches back several centuries.

Editor’s note, February 6, 2025: This story originally ran during the 2018 Winter Olympics and is being reshared as part of coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics.

Ever wonder how Olympic figure skating is scored? We talked to Mirai Nagasu and Tara Lipinski, two Olympian figure skaters, about the complex system and the incentives it creates for skaters.

At the Olympics, even the most rehearsed athletes can crack under the pressure. There’s something about high-stakes situations that seems to destroy people’s ability to do well. And many of us non-athletes have been there too.

But why does choking happen, and how can we stop it? Over the past decade, researchers have shed a lot of light on this once-mysterious question. That’s mostly because of the work of Sian Beilock. She’s a psychologist at the University of Chicago who has been studying why people fail when the pressure is on. She even wrote the book on it: Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have to.