Around 2,900 top athletes from around the world are converging on Italy to take part in the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, hoping to bring home medals across 116 events.
Olympians from Team USA have won a total of 330 Winter Olympic medals through Beijing 2022 — second only to winter sports powerhouse Norway. This year, Team USA is bringing around 230 athletes to the Winter Olympics, which run from Feb. 6 to Feb. 22.
These are some of the American athletes to watch.
Alex Ferreira
This will be freestyle skier Alex Ferreira's third trip to the Olympics. Ferreira took home silver at PyeongChang in 2018 and a bronze medal in Beijing in 2022.
"It's awesome representing Team USA, because I look at us and I think we're the best team in the world, and then it's special," Ferreira recently told CBS News. "It's a big deal to Team USA, to bring home a medal for America and for your town, for your state, for your country. It's huge."
If he couldn't compete in his Olympic sport, Ferreira said he'd compete in either track and field or trampoline.
The 31-year-old athlete, who started skiing at age 3 and began competing at 10, specializes in the halfpipe. His first competition was an aerials event, which his mother enrolled him in without informing him, according to Team USA. He's also medaled at the Winter X Games. During the 2023-2024 season, Ferreira swept five world cups, X Games Aspen and the Dew Tour. Ferreira also skis under his alter ego, an older man who goes by the name Hotdog Hans.
Alex Hall
Milano Cortina will be 27-year-old freestyle skier Alex Hall's third trip to the Olympics. He made his debut at the PyeongChang Games in 2018. Hall said he has more confidence now and a different outlook than he did then.
"Going to enjoy some of the smaller things at the Olympics, not necessarily the grandiose things," Hall told CBS News.
He won gold in slopestyle in Beijing in 2022, and earned gold in four different disciplines at the X Games: big air, slopestyle, knuckle huck and real ski.
Hall, who was born in Alaska to an Italian mom, spent more than half of his life in Europe. He grew up just a few hours away from where he'll be competing.
The skier said he's looking forward to meeting with athletes from around the world and hearing their stories, something which should be easy for him since he speaks several languages, including English, French, Italian and German.
Alysa Liu
Figure skater Alysa Liu, now 20 years old and back from a surprise retirement from the ice at 16, will be headed to the Olympics for her second time this year. She was the youngest U.S. figure skating national champion in history, winning the title at age 13. She won another national title at 14 before taking a break from skating after the 2022 Olympics.
After her comeback to skating, Liu won the women's singles world title at the 2025 World Championships. Olympic men's skating gold medalist Brian Boitano called it "the biggest comeback in sports history."
Liu recently told "60 Minutes" that as she prepares for the Olympics, she views herself as more of an artist than an athlete.
"I view competitions more as, like, a stage for performing," she said.
Amber Glenn
Figure skater Amber Glenn, 26, is headed to her first Olympics, just weeks after winning her third straight U.S. title. She's the first woman to do so since Michelle Kwan.
Glenn told CBS News that being an Olympian is "an incredible opportunity" because she'd "get to be on the biggest stage an athlete can be on, and I'd be able to voice my beliefs and my opinions and my message."
The skater has spent years advocating for mental health awareness and the LGBTQ+ community; Glenn came out as bisexual and pansexual in 2019.
"When I came out initially, I was terrified. I was scared it would affect my scores or something, but I didn't care," she said in a Team USA post from 2024. "It was worth it to see the amount of young people who felt more comfortable in their environments at the rink, who feel, 'Oh, I'm represented by her, and she's one of the top skaters.'"
Brittany Bowe
This will be Florida speedskater Brittany Bowe's fourth trip to the Olympics. The 37-year-old two-time Olympic bronze medalist specializes in long track. She said her earlier experiences in the Olympics have taught her to focus on the process.
"In years past, it's been really easy to be outcome-oriented, and I have found that that doesn't work. That can be become really debilitating in your preparation," Bowe told CBS News. "The cards will fall as they will, and for me to just stay focused in the moment, in the process and be ready to go when that gun goes off."
Bowe carried the American flag during the opening ceremony of the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.
"Being an Olympian is so important to me because it has given me the platform to inspire people, to encourage people, and it's also given me an opportunity to live out my childhood dream," Bowe said. "It's given me an opportunity to bring a whole squad of people along, and being able to take my family all around the world, for them to be a part of it has been really, really meaningful."
Caroline Harvey
As a 3-year-old newbie to ice hockey, Caroline Harvey told her aunt she'd make the 2022 U.S. Olympic team, according to Team USA. Her childhood prediction came true when she became the youngest member of the team and helped the U.S. earn a silver medal in Beijing.
"Anytime you get to wear that crest and represent your country, it's the biggest honor, and being able to do it at an Olympic setting is just something that is unforgettable," Harvey told CBS News.
The 23-year-old athlete was named the best defender at the 2024 and 2025 IIHF Women's World Championships. She's also a two-time NCAA champion for the Wisconsin Badgers.
She's hoping to take home gold in Milano Cortina, but said success is ultimately "knowing we did everything we could to be successful in playing our team game."
Corinne Stoddard
Milano Cortina will be 24-year-old skater Corinne Stoddard's second trip to the Olympics.
She went to Beijing in 2022, where she broke her nose during her very first race, according to Team USA. Stoddard competed in the rest of her races while unable to breathe out of one nostril.
Stoddard started roller skating in kindergarten, then switched to inline skating a year later. When she was 11, she began speed skating. While Stoddard does not yet have any Olympic medals, she's a three-time world medalist in short track speedskating.
The skater said she's dreamed of the Olympics since she was a child, which required a lot of hard work along the way.
"I would always have training every day after school, so there wasn't much time for like, play dates or sleepovers growing up," she told CBS News. "There wasn't much time as, like, a teenager, to go out with friends on the weekends. And then for my last two years of high school, I did online when I moved out to Salt Lake to start training with the national team, so I didn't get to do any of, like the typical like, prom and stuff like that. But to me, that's all worth it."
Deedra Irwin
Deedra Irwin grew up wanting to be an Olympian, but she was thinking about the Summer Olympics, not the Winter Olympics.
"I wanted to be an Olympic track star. I had no idea the Winter Olympics were a thing," Irwin told CBS News.
The 33-year-old athlete picked up skiing in high school as a way to stay in shape between the fall cross-country season and the spring track and field season, according to Team USA. It wasn't until she was 25 that she started participating in biathlon.
She went to the 2022 Beijing Olympics, where she finished 7th, the best finish ever for an American in an individual biathlon event at the Olympics.
"We've trained so much throughout our lives to just get to this stage," Irwin said. "And so I think for me, it means a lot of, like, community and family and friends. I don't remember the last time I was home for Christmas in the past, like, eight years."
Erin Jackson
Gold medalist speedskater Erin Jackson, 33, will be making her third Olympic appearance — and this year, along with bobsledder Frank Del Duca, she'll lead Team USA as a flagbearer during the opening ceremony.
In 2022, Jackson became the first Black woman to win gold in an individual event at the Winter Olympics — after nearly failing to make the team that year.
Jackson slipped at the U.S. trials. Teammate Bowe, who qualified for the 500, 1,000 and 1,5000-meter races at trials, gave up her spot in the 500-meter race to ensure Jackson would get to skate in Beijing.
"Each of my Olympic appearances have been super different, just like coming in at all different stages of my career, and this one coming in as the reigning champion, there's going to be a lot of pressure, but that's what I'm looking forward to," Jackson told CBS News.
Jackson first started ice skating shortly before her first trip to the Olympics. She first stepped onto an ice rink in 2016. Jackson spent years inline skating before that.
"I'm just super grateful to be able to skate in circles for a living, and I just want to keep doing it as long as I can," she said.
Hilary Knight
Ice hockey player Hilary Knight, 36, has been to the Olympics four times and has medaled each time, taking home a gold and three silver medals. Milano Cortino will be her fifth Olympics.
"And never would I have imagined being able to compete in five Olympic Games," she told CBS News. "I mean, that's just, that's crazy in the best way."
Ice hockey play has become a lot faster over the years, Knight said.
"It's a lot more technical, tactical. There's more of a dynamic, skillful level to it as well, and the visibility is ever growing, which is really exciting," she said.
Knight played a key role in creating the Professional Women's Hockey League.
Ilia Malinin
Figure skater Ilia Malinin is headed to his first Olympics. The 21-year-old, known as the "Quad God," is the first athlete to successfully land each of the six types of quadruple jumps in one program.
According to Team USA, Malinin eats a chocolate bar before each competition.
Malinan, whose parents were Olympic figure skaters for Uzbekistan and whose grandfather was a figure skater for the USSR, started skating at 6.
He won gold at both the 2024 and 2025 ISU Figure Skating World Championships.
Read Malinan's interview with "CBS Sunday Morning" here.
Jaelin Kauf
This will be freestyle skier Jaelin Kauf's third trip to the Olympics. The 29-year-old silver medalist specializes in moguls and dual moguls, the latter of which will make its debut at the Olympics this year — something Kauf said she's been waiting a long time for.
"It's just such an exciting sport," she told CBS News. "I've probably excelled in that historically more than singles, and so it'll just be really cool to be a part of that on the Olympic stage, being a part of that debut."
Both of Kauf's parents were professional mogul skiers.
"My mom has always been my biggest hero and role model, just watching how she's just gone at life and done what she's done, pushing the boundaries," Kauf said.
Jordan Stolz
Speed skater Jordan Stolz, 21, started skating on the pond behind his family's home after watching Apolo Ohno and Shani Davis in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, according to Team USA.
He made his Olympic debut in 2022. Stolz specializes in the 500-meter, 1,000meter and 1,500-meter. He became the world champion in all three categories at the ISU Single Distance World Championships in 2023 and again in 2024.
Stolz also skates professionally for the Dutch team, Albert Heijn Zaanlander. Speedskating is a widely-followed sport in the Netherlands, and Stolz said he hopes to bring more awareness to speed skating in the U.S.
"It's obviously not going to be as much as it is in Holland. I wish it was but maybe someday it will be, but at least I can do a little bit," Stolz told CBS News.
Kendall Coyne Schofield
Milano Cortina will be ice hockey player Kendall Coyne Schofield's fourth trip to the Olympics. She previously took home a gold and two silvers.
"I'm just so excited to feel revived through these games with family, friends, fans, excitement, just energy, all the things that we weren't able to experience in Beijing because [of] the pandemic," Coyne Schofield told CBS News.
This will also be the 33-year-old athlete's first Olympics as a mom, something that she said has made her a better hockey player.
"It's put my life into perspective," she said. "It's provided me with [an] abundance of patience that I didn't have previously."
Her son chants "USA, USA," whether the team wins or loses, she said.
Off the ice, Coyne Schofield voiced a hockey announcer in the Pixar movie "Inside Out 2."
Korey Dropkin
This will be 30-year-old curler Korey Dropkin's first trip to the Olympics, though he's been curling for most of his life.
"It's a family sport. Honestly, it's like religion to me," Dropkin told CBS News. "I grew up at the curling club. My parents were super involved with a junior program at our curling club. My brother was five years older. He was already curling. I followed in his footsteps. I was like his shadow."
After graduating from high school, Dropkin moved to Duluth, Minnesota, which has become the U.S. curling capital.
"I've dedicated my whole life to getting to the Olympics and hopefully medaling at the Olympics," he said. "I moved myself and relocated and really dedicated a lot of blood, sweat and tears. So being an Olympian, finally, I've been close, and now finally realizing the Olympics is just a big dream come true."
Kristen Santos-Griswold
Speedskater Kristen Santos-Griswold, 31, almost chose not to go to this year's Olympics after heartbreak in 2022. She was in bronze medal position with just two laps to go in the 1,000-meter when a bump by an opponent caused her to fall. The bump was later ruled a penalty, but the disheartening finish had Santos-Griswold considering retirement.
"When I decided that I was going to keep going, I was like, 'All right, I'm doing it for me. I'm going to make it all worth it. I'm going to enjoy the journey," Santos-Griswold told CBS News. "I think that's just helped to, like, catapult me into going into Olympic year with number one on my helmet."
Santos-Griswold has been training for most of her life. She started figure skating at 3. When she was 9, Santos-Griswold saw speedskating in a commercial on TV, decided she wanted to try it, and fell in love.
"Being an Olympian means everything," she said. "It's something that I've been working towards my entire life. I started skating when I was 3 years old, and I'm 30 now, so solid 27 years of dreaming about this."
Santos-Griswold is currently working on a doctorate, with plans to be a physical therapist once her skating career is over, according to Team USA.
Lindsey Vonn
Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, who made a comeback several years after retiring, will be heading to her fifth Olympics — despite an injury on the slopes in late January that left her with a ruptured ACL.
The 41-year-old skier competed at the Olympics in 2002, 2006, 2010 and 2018, taking home gold and two silver medals.
She's the only American woman to win Olympic gold in downhill, according to Team USA, and she also has the most victories by any skier — male or female — in a single discipline.
Vonn started skiing at 3. She learned with her father and grandfather, both of whom were competitive skiers, and made her Olympic debut at 17. She retired in 2019 amid severe knee damage. Vonn has since had knee surgery and told CBS News she's now the strongest she's been in her career.
"The only thing I think that's maybe more challenging at 41 is just the grind of being away," she said. "I kind of got used to being at home with my dogs and my family, and I got away from, you know, the routine of being on the road, which doesn't necessarily change because of age, just, I think, more from being away from the sport for six years."
In 2022, John Clarey, then 41, made history as the oldest alpine skier to medal at an Olympic Winter Games. Vonn said her age won't stop her from competing at the coming Olympics.
"If I have the opportunity to compete, I'm going to," Vonn said. "Just because I'm 41 doesn't mean I can't do that if I physically feel good, which I do, I feel better now than I did in my 20s. So you know, I don't see there to be any reason why I can't do it at 41."
A week before the start of the Games, Vonn crashed in one of her final downhill tune-ups. While she was airlifted off the mountain to receive medical treatment after injuring her left knee, she assured her fans on social media that her Olympic dream was "not over."
"This is a very difficult outcome one week before the Olympics… but if there's one thing I know how to do, it's a comeback," she wrote.
Vonn is set to compete in the women's downhill on Sunday, Feb. 8, and said she would wear a brace for the race.
"I'm not letting this slip through my fingers. I'm gonna do it. End of story," she said.
Madison Chock and Evan Bates
Ice dancers Madison Chock and Evan Bates are back for another the Olympics — and they're already setting a high bar, scoring a world-best 91.06 points in rhythm dance as the competition began on Feb. 6.
Chock, 33, competed in 2014, 2018 and 2022, while Bates, 36, began his Olympic run in 2010.
Their partnership began in 2011, and they won Olympic gold during the team event at their third Olympic Games.
"There's so much pride behind it," Chock told CBS News. "I think growing up and seeing other athletes represent Team USA meant a lot and shaped a lot of how I view sport and athleticism, and there's so much pride that comes with representing your country in the Olympic Games on the biggest stage for sports in the world. And it's just been the greatest honor of my life to be a member of Team USA."
Chock and Bates have also won three consecutive ISU World Figure Skating Championships, starting in 2023.
They're partners off the ice, too. The couple got married in 2024.
Maxim Naumov
Figure skater Maxim Naumov will make his first appearance at the Olympics after a year marked by tragedy and an emotional comeback.
His trip to the Olympics comes a year after his parents, former world champions Vadim Naumov and Evgenia Shishkova, died when their plane collided with a military helicopter on approach to Washington, D.C. His parents, who were popular coaches at the Skating Club of Boston, were among 67 people killed in the crash.
Naumov held a photo of his parents as he waited for his scores after competing during the men's short program at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in January.
"Having role models be right there in the house, at the rink, just everywhere, they inspired me to want this dream and it would mean absolutely everything for me to be at the Olympics," Naumov said in a social media post. "I'm working as hard as I possibly can and I'm doing everything in my power to do so. Doing it for them would be even more beautiful."
Mikaela Shiffrin
Skier Mikaela Shiffrin, 30, will be headed to the Olympics for the fourth time. She first skied in the Olympics in 2013 and has earned two gold medals and a silver.
Shiffrin specializes in slalom, giant slalom, super-G and downhill. She's the first alpine skier to record 100 FIS World Cup wins and the first athlete in FIS Ski World Cup history to win in all six disciplines.
In 2024, Shiffrin crashed after losing control while on the course for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics. Then last year, she said she was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder from another crash, during which she suffered a puncture wound and severe trauma to her oblique muscles.
Mystique Ro
Skeleton racer Mystique Ro, 31, will be headed to the Olympics for the first time, but she's no stranger to competition.
Ro competed in track & field. Then, in 2016, she was invited to a rookie camp by USA Bobsled/Skeleton. Coaches there told her she was a little small for bobsled and pushed her to try skeleton.
During skeleton, racers on sleds — head first and face down — can reach speeds of around 80 miles per hour, using body shifts to guide the sled through the course.
"Once you get away from the fear, it starts to become a game," Ro told CBS News. "So if you get past the fear, that's the first step, and then you can kind of enjoy the sport for what it is."
While plenty of kids ride sleds down hills, Row said this isn't the same.
"The speed is significantly faster, and there's a lot more peril involved if you're not prepared for it," she said.
She made her FIL World Cup debut in 2023 and, the following year, became the first American athlete to win a skeleton race on the World Cup circuit in eight years.
Nick Goepper
Milano Cortina will be skier Nick Goepper's fourth trip to the Olympics. In 2014, he took bronze in Sochi, contributing to a U.S. podium sweep in men's slopestyle skiing. Goepper won silver at the Olympics in 2018 and again in 2022.
"To me, being an Olympian has meant legacy," he told CBS News. "I am a huge fan of history. I love reading about people who have done, you know, amazing things and family connections and just like, you know, people's eyes always light up when you talk about the Olympics."
The 31-year-old athlete retired after Beijing, but then returned less than a year later to compete in halfpipe instead of slopestyle.
Goepper said his approach to competition and the Olympics has changed over the years.
"I can sit back and enjoy the little moments a little bit more. I can savor things a little more, which is nice," he said.
Paula Moltzan
Alpine skier Paula Moltzan made her Olympic debut in 2022.
"I feel like I learned a lot in my first Olympics, and so to take all those lessons learned into another opportunity would mean a lot to me," she told CBS News.
Moltzan, now 31, won the junior world slalom title when she was 20, becoming the first American woman to win the event at the junior world championships. She also won the NCAA women's slalom title as a freshman at the University of Vermont.
After her Olympics debut in Beijing at 27, Moltzan became a two-time world medalist. She won a title in the parallel team event in 2023 and her first individual world medal, a bronze, in giant slalom in 2025.
She said her family sacrificed a lot to support her skiing career.
"I think they took second mortgages out on my house to allow me to compete in sport. And then my siblings as well, I definitely had the priority because of my athletic ability. They gave up maybe smaller moments, like going to summer camp so I could go to ski camp," she said. "But it all becomes worth it when you're there with your team, representing Team USA."
Red Gerard
This will be Red Gerard's third trip to the Olympics. The 25-year-old snowboarder won gold in slopestyle in 2018 when he was just 17, becoming the youngest American snowboarder to achieve the feat, according to Team USA.
"I quickly learned that first Olympics how big it is and how cool it is," Gerard told CBS News. "Ever since, you just kind of want to get back on that stage because there is no stage bigger than the Olympics."
Gerard returned to the Olympics in 2022, finishing fourth in slopestyle and fifth in big air. The snowboarder won in slopestyle at the 2024 and 2025 X Games.
Gerard started snowboarding when he was just 2-years-old. In 2007, his family moved to Colorado, where they built a snowboarding park in their backyard to support Gerard's passion.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle
Alpine skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle, 33, is headed to the Olympics for his third games. Cochran-Siegle, the son of an Olympian, started skiing at the age of 2.
He tore his ACL and lateral meniscus in 2013 at the FIS Alpine Ski World Championships, according to Team USA. Five years later, he made his Olympic debut in 2018 in PyeongChang. Cochran-Siegle won his first FIS World Cup Race in 2020, but missed the FIS Alpine Ski World Championships in 2021 with a fractured neck.
The skier came back in 2022, where he won silver in super-G at the Beijing Games. He was the only U.S. alpine skiing medalist at the Beijing Games.
Cochran-Siegle told CBS News that during his previous Olympic appearances, he learned to embrace the moment and to trust and believe in himself.
"Just going out there and doing what I love and putting myself out there is what's important," he said.
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