Wide-Open Course In Bormio Is A ‘Great Host’ For Skimo’s Olympic Debut

Cam Smith looked around the ski mountaineering venue in Bormio, Italy, earlier this year and immediately recognized that it would provide a spectacular setting when the sport makes its Olympic debut there in February 2026.

Ski mountaineering, or “skimo,” features athletes ascending a mountain before they ski down it. The competition at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 will include sprint events for men and women as well as a mixed relay.

“There’s a really rich ski history there,” said Smith, a member of the U.S. Skimo National Team. “Bormio’s just this beautiful, picturesque Alpine valley, a really historic ski destination. It’s a great host for the Games. We had a lot of fun there at the test event, and (I’m) looking forward to getting back there.”

U.S. teammate Gwen Rudy came away equally impressed.

“The venue was awesome, located on the ski slope with Bormio, an old Italian village tucked up into it,” Rudy said. “It was a very well-organized venue and location.

“I like how manicured the course was and how fast it is. It’s clean, straightforward and not very technical.”

The Olympic test event took place Feb. 22-23, when some of the best skimo competitors in the world gathered for the sport’s first world cup race held at the Stelvio Ski Centre. It gave them an opportunity to preview the course ahead of the 2026 Winter Games.

Smith, who competed in the men’s sprint and mixed relay in Bormio, found the course to his liking.

“I thought it was great,” Smith said. “It was wide open, uphill and downhill, which I think is a really critical attribute of these racecourses. It started with a long, non-technical climb. It’s nice to have that long straightaway. It really led to whoever was the fastest climber was going to make it to the top first.”

The downhill portion of the course was open, too, according to Smith. However, it was less straightforward than the climb. Smith said the decent featured big, banked turns, similar to something you’d fine in a freestyle ski race. 

“It’s wide open for a better skier to be able to make a pass on the downhill and kind of continuing into that second climb again,” he said. “It made for a good, fair race, so I’m looking forward to that being the Olympic (course).”

Gwen, who competed in the women’s sprint event in Bormio, said the downhill portion of the course presented a new challenge for her and some of her teammates. 

“What I didn’t like, what I haven’t raced on before, were banked turns,” she said. “Gaining speed on the banks was new for me and a lot of the USA athletes. The most challenging aspect of the course was the speed.”

Smith and mixed relay partner Jessie Young placed 10th in the test event. 

The American duo is ranked 13th in the world and just a point behind Canada in the standings. The top-ranked country from North America will earn an Olympic berth. 

Smith and Young have one last chance to earn the U.S. a quota spot in early December at a world cup race in Salt Lake City — which will be the first world cup event hosted in the United States in 20 years.

“I’m just 100 percent laser focused on performing there to earn that (Olympic) quota spot for our country, and we’ll reset after that,” Smith said. “That leaves us about 2½ months to prep for the Bormio course.”

The need to qualify early for the Olympics and then possibly compete in the Games later has required Smith to change his preparations for the world cup season.

“It is quite a bit different,” he said. “Normally, I’m not trying to reach my peak at the beginning of December for the first world cup. This year I need to be at my very best at the very first world cup. I’m racing a little bit more on foot this fall.”

If he and Young beat Canada in December and end up being selected to race at the Games, Smith will look at time splits from the Bormio world cup event and tailor his interval work based on those and the course grade.

After getting a taste of Bormio’s one-of-a-kind course already, Smith is eager to compete on the course again. 

“The downhill’s absolutely unique,” Smith said. “There’s never been another downhill like that with big berms and banked slalom descent. It’s a really hard thing to simulate. It’s definitely a learning experience to race on it because you can’t really find that kind of feature in nature or on a ski slope.”

Bob Reinert spent 17 years writing sports for The Boston Globe. He also served as a sports information director at Saint Anselm College and Phillips Exeter Academy. He is a contributor to TeamUSA.com on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.