Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 Preview: Cross-Country Skiing

Cross-country skiing was held in 1924 at the first Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix, France. Men competed 18-kilometer and 50-kilometer races, and the Scandinavian countries dominated until the Soviet Union entered the playing field at the 1956 Winter Games. Women’s cross-country ski races debuted at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo, but the U.S. did not send a team of women for another 20 years.

Since the sport’s Olympic debut 102 years ago, races have come and gone — 5 km, 15 km, 30 km are no longer part of the Olympic program. But other races were also added. And since the introduction of freestyle or skate technique to the world cup in 1982 — by U.S. Olympic silver medalist Bill Koch — races now alternate between freestyle and classic technique from Winter Games to Winter Games. Jessie Diggins won an Olympic bronze medal in the freestyle sprint at the 2022 Winter Games.


At the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, the individual sprint is a classic race (traditional kick and glide technique). However, the team sprint at Milano Cortina 2026 will be a freestyle race, as will the 10 km interval-start. The longest races this year — the 50km — is a classic race this go-round.

Cross-country skiing will be held at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Val di Fiemme, a venue that has hosted world cups and world championships for several decades. Most recently, Val di Fiemme hosts the final races in the annual multi-stage Tour de Ski. Val di Fiemme is about a two-hour drive southwest of Cortina d’Ampezzo.

For the first time in Olympic history, men and women will race the same distances in all the cross-country ski races. The skiathlon — where skiers race the first half in the classic technique, then transition to skate skiing for the last half — is now 20 km (10 km of classic and 10 km of freestyle). The women used to race a 15 km skiathlon, while the men went 30 km.

Both genders now race a 10km interval start, not 10 for the women and 15 for the men. In the four-person team relays, each skier races 7.5 km (formerly 5km for the women, 10km for the men). And in the longest race at the Olympic Games, both men and women now ski 50k m (the women formerly raced 30 km).

Neither the U.S. men or women have ever won an Olympic medal in the relay. The women finished fifth at the 2018 Olympic Winter Games and the men also placed fifth in 2002 at the Salt Lake City Games. But since the relay distance was lengthened two years ago, the U.S. women have finished on the world cup podium twice.

Only three Americans have ever won Olympic medals in cross-country skiing. Koch skied to a surprise silver medal in the 30 km at the 1976 Innsbruck Winter Games.

Forty-two years later, Diggins and Kikkan Randall won the country’s first Olympic gold medal in cross-country skiing when Diggins came from behind in the final stretch of the freestyle team sprint. Diggins added two more medals at the 2022 Beijing Games: bronze in the individual sprint and a memorable silver medal in the 30 km freestyle race as she battled food poisoning.

In her final year of professional ski racing, Diggins is talented at every distance and could very well come home with multiple Olympic medals. She is perhaps strongest in the 10 km freestyle (she won the world title at this distance in 2023) and the team sprint, a freestyle event at Milano Cortina 2026. Of her seven world championship medals, four have come in the team sprint.

Interestingly, in 2013 when Val di Fiemme last hosted the world championships, Diggins won her first world championship medal — a gold — in the team sprint with Randall.

In the 2026 Olympic team sprint, Diggins will likely be paired with Julia Kern. The two have won medals in the team sprint at the past two world championships.

Rosie Brennan could also be a factor at the 2026 Winter Games. Fourth in the sprint at the 2022 Olympic Games and sixth in the 30 km, she is one of the strongest cross-country skiers in the world. She has struggled with a mysterious virus for the past year. Still, Brennan qualified for her third Olympics.

While the U.S. women have carried the torch for the past two decades, the American men have one of the strongest teams in decades. 2022 Olympians Gus Schumacher, Ben Ogden, and JC Schoonmaker have all made the world cup podium in the past few years — Schumacher in the distance races, Ogden and Schoonmaker in sprints. But Schumacher and Ogden are capable of winning a medal at any distance.

The U.S. men could finally break the U.S. medal drought in the relay. Schumacher, Ogden, and two-time NCAA champion John Steel Hagenbuch, who qualified for his first Olympics, were on the relay team that twice won at the junior world championships (2019 and 2020).

Olympic cross-country competition begins on February 7. Medals will be awarded on:

February 7 (Women’s 10 km x 10 km Skiathlon)

February 8 (Men’s 10 km x 10 km Skiathlon)

February 10 (Men’s and Women’s Individual Classic Sprint)

February 12 (Women’s 10 km Freestyle Interval Start)

February 13 (Men’s 10 km Freestyle Interval Start)

February 14 (Women’s 4 x 7.5 km Relay)

February 15 (Men’s 4 x 7.5 km Relay)

February 18 (Men’s and Women’s Team Freestyle Sprint)

February 21 (Men’s 50 km Classic — Mass Start)

February 22 (Women’s 50 km Classic — Mass Start)