Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 Preview: Bobsled, Skelton and Luge

At the Olympic Winter Games Milan Cortina 2026, the sliding sports — bobsled, skeleton, and luge — will be held at the new Cortina Sliding Centre in Cortina d’Ampezzo. The facility opened to sliding this fall. It’s located in Cortina d’Ampezzo, 257 miles northeast of Milan and 100 miles north of Venice.

Bobsled — or as it’s known in Europe, bobsleigh — was included in the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924. Back then, it was only a four-man event, literally. Women’s bobsled did not debut until the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Today, bobsled consists of four events at the Olympic Games. Men compete in the four-man and two-man events; women in two-woman and monobob, which debuted four years ago at the Beijing Games.

While World Cup bobsled races consist of two heats per event, Olympic competition expands to four heats in each event, with the four heats held over two days. Each heat consists of one run down the bobsled track. The winner clocks the fastest total time across all four heats.

The bobsled track in Cortina d’Ampezzo is new; athletes only began sliding on it this fall. In the first bobsled World Cup in late November, several Team USA athletes found success on the new track. Kaysha Love finished second in both monobob and two-woman (with Azaria Hill), with three-time Olympic gold medalist Kaillie Armbruster Humphries taking third (with Sylvia Hoffman) in two-woman and fourth in monobob.

Two of America’s top bobsled pilots — Armbruster Humphries and Elana Meyers Taylor — are moms. Armbruster Humphries’s son was born June 14, 2024. Meyers Taylor has two sons are ages 3 and 5. At Milano Cortina 2026, the U.S. women will be looking for their first Olympic gold medal in the two-woman event since the 2002 Winter Games.

In the two-man, the U.S. men last won an Olympic gold medal in 1936. In four-man, the U.S. men last won an Olympic gold medal at the 2010 Vancouver Games, when the late Steven Holcomb’s famed “Night Train” broke Team USA’s 62-year medal drought.

Women: The Team USA women have won medals in every Olympic race since the discipline debuted at the 2002 Winter Games. Most recently, in monobob, Team USA’s Armbruster Humphries and Meyers Taylor won gold and silver medals at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games. Meyers Taylor also won a bronze medal in two-woman at the 2022 Winter Games — her fifth Olympic medal over four Games.

Men: In four-man competition, Team USA last won an Olympic medal when Holcomb piloted his sled to second place at the 2014 Sochi Games. His brakemen were Steven Langton, Curtis Tomasevicz, and Christopher Fogt. Holcomb and Langton won another bronze at the 2014 Winter Games in the two-man event.

Heading to her second Olympic Games — but first as a bobsled pilot — Love is a heavy favorite to win gold in monobob. She is the reigning monobob world champion.

Love, Armbruster Humphries, and Meyers Taylor are all heavily favored to medal in women’s two-woman. It will be the fifth Games for both Humphries and Meyers Taylor. Humphries is the most decorated female Olympic medalist in bobsled history, with three gold medals and one bronze (she competed for Canada in the 2010-2018 Games). Meyers Taylor has five Olympic medals total: three silver, two bronze.

In men’s competition, watch for bobsled pilot Frank Del Duca to make a move onto the podium. The 2022 Olympian finished fourth in both two-man and four-man at the 2025 world championships. And at the first World Cup of the Olympic season, held on the Olympic track in Cortina, Del Duca slid to fifth (with Joshua Williamson) in two-man.

Olympic bobsled competition begins on February 15 with women’s monobob. Medals will be awarded on:

February 16 (Women’s Monobob)

February 17 (Men’s Two-Man)

February 21 (Women’s Two-Man)

February 22 (Men’s Four-Man)

Skeleton is one of the oldest winter sports, where athletes race face down on the icy track. Despite its long history, the sport was not held consistently at the Olympic Winter Games until 2002, when women’s skeleton debuted as well. Like bobsled, Olympic skeleton competition consists of four heats held over two days. In addition to men’s and women’s individual competition, a mixed team relay debuts at the 2026 Milano Cortina Games. One woman and one man from each nation race consecutively down the track, and their combined times determine the winner.

Team USA athletes will be looking to win their first Olympic medals since the 2014 Winter Games.

Men: Since skeleton re-debuted at the Winter Games in 2002, U.S. men have won medals twice: Jim Shea won gold in 2002 and Matt Antoine took bronze in 2014.

Women: In the debut for women’s skeleton at the Olympics in 2002, Team USA swept the top-two spots, with Tristan Gale taking gold and Lea Ann Parsley silver. A dozen years later, Noelle Pikus-Pace won a silver medal at the Sochi Games, with Katie Uhlaender 0.04 of a second off the podium in fourth.

Team USA’s Austin Florian and Mystique Ro are the reigning world champions in the mixed team event. After their fifth place in mixed team at the opening World Cup on the new Cortina Sliding Centre track, the American duo will be favorites to slide onto the podium again. Both will be in the hunt in individual competition as well. At the Cortina World Cup in late November, Florian finished tenth but tallied the fastest start both runs.

Important Dates

Olympic skeleton begins on February 12 with the first men’s heats. Medals will be awarded on

February 13 (Men’s Skeleton)

February 14 (Women’s Skeleton)

February 15 (Mixed Team)

Luge — where athletes slide on their backs, feet first — is known as the fastest sport on ice. Sliders frequently hit over 90 mph on the track, and it is the only sport timed to the thousandth of a second. Luge made its Olympic debut in 1964, with both men’s and women’s events, plus doubles. Rules did not dictate which gender could slide in doubles, but the successful teams were all men.

Like its sliding sport cousins, Olympic luge consists of four heats, or runs. Fastest cumulative time over the four runs wins. The team relay — consisting of a female slider, male, and a men’s doubles team — debuted at the Winter Games in 2014. Women’s doubles debuts in this year’s games at Milano Cortina and will be added to the team relay.

Germany has long dominated luge, winning 81 Olympic medals over the past 62 years (including East and West Germany) and sweeping the team relay wins at the past three Games. Austria is a distant second with 22 Olympic medals to date. The U.S. has won six Olympic medals in luge, with doubles teams in the late 1990s/early 2000s winning four.

With the addition of women’s doubles to the team relay, the U.S. has been particularly competitive, scoring several World Cup and world championship podium finishes in the past few seasons. Look for them to be in the hunt of a team relay medal at Milano Cortina.

In women’s singles, Erin Hamlin is the sole Olympic medalist for Team USA to date (bronze, 2014). Chris Mazdzer holds that same title for men’s singles (silver, 2018).

The doubles duos of Chris Thorpe/Gordon Sheer and Mark Grimmette/Brian Martin took home silver and bronze, respectively, at the 1998 Nagano Games. Four years later, Grimmette/Martin claimed silver and Thorpe teamed with Clay Ives for bronze.

The current U.S. luge team is led by several veterans with both World Cup and world championship hardware, including 2025 world championship bronze medalist Emily Fischnaller (nee Sweeney), who will be sliding at a “home” Games (her husband is Italian luger Dominik Fischnaller, the 2022 Olympic bronze medalist in men’s singles). But every current U.S. slider is capable of finishing on the Olympic podium. 2022 Olympian Ashley Farquharson finished fourth at the test event on the new Cortina track in November.

The U.S. doubles teams are also strong. Chevonne Forgan/Sophia Kirkby are three-time world championship medalists, and Marcus Mueller/Ansel Haugsjaa finished second at the Olympic test event in November. The young men’s doubles sliders are the 2024 junior world champions and 2025 U23 world champions.

Look for the U.S. to vie for a medal in the team relay, with women’s doubles sliding the anchor leg. Forgan and Kirkby have one of the best reaction times on the circuit, making them top contenders to bring home a medal in the event.

Olympic luge begins on February 7 with men’s singles. Medals will be awarded on:

February 8 (Men’s Singles)

February 9 (Women’s Singles)

February 11 (Men’s and Women’s Doubles)

February 12 (Team Relay)