The 2026 Milan-Cortina di Ampezo Winter Olympics are now behind us. And within the International Olympic Committee, there's a palpable sense of joy and relief at having been a resounding success. After months of worry, as it seemed some venues wouldn't be ready in time, the Italian authorities pulled it off with an event that ran almost flawlessly, boasting a fantastic atmosphere and record-breaking viewership. The weather also played a part. Just as the IOC was debating the inclusion of sports unrelated to ice and snow, aiming to transform the Winter Games into a kind of mountain competition to reduce their dependence on the weather, the Italian Alps experienced their coldest winter in twenty years. So much snow fell that the snow cannons, which had been prepared as a precaution, weren't even needed.

For more than 10 minutes, Oriol Cardona and Ana Alonso didn't know where to hide. They were so exhausted they could barely speak after the demanding Olympic ski mountaineering relay final, in which they had finished third. But the competition judges had penalized one of Alonso's ski changes, a penalty that, in theory, deducted three seconds from their time. If that was the case, they would win the bronze. But there was no official confirmation of a possible appeal from the Americans, who had finished fourth. Or the possibility that the penalty would be for more seconds and leave them off the podium. "Three seconds, it says three seconds!" Alonso shouted when she saw the confirmation on the scoreboard that they had won the bronze. And Oriol Cardona began to cry with emotion. He had made an incredible effort to win his second Olympic medal in three days.

Security personnel at the Bormio ski resort, where the final of the ski mountaineering sprint race was held, ordered the removal of the Estelada flags and some Catalan flags carried by Catalan fans, many of them friends and acquaintances of Oriol Cardona, who has won the gold medal, and Ot Ferrer. The explanation given by security personnel is that they are required to enforce the Olympic Charter, which prohibits "any type of political, religious, or racial demonstration or propaganda in any venue or facility considered part of the Olympic Games." At these same Games, an athlete, the Ukrainian Vladislav Heraskevich, from skeletonHe was expelled because he was competing with a helmet that displayed the faces of athletes killed by the Russian army.

It's one of the television phenomena of the yearThe series 'Heated Rivalry' tells the love story between two ice hockey stars. Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov face off on the ice and desire each other off it. The series tackles the issue of homosexuality in elite men's sports, still taboo in sports like soccer. It did so just before the Winter Games, where ice hockey is a major attraction, allowing viewers to see the two lead actors carrying the Olympic torch. This coincided with a record-breaking 48 athletes competing as part of the LGBTQ+ community. Winter Games are often a tolerant space where everyone can live and love as they choose, as is the case in figure skating.

Oriol Cardona from Banyoles lived up to expectations and won the gold medal in the ski mountaineering sprint, a discipline making its Olympic debut. Oriol had known for months that everyone had high hopes for him. So much so that one of his first reactions after his victory was a feeling of liberation. "It's hard to know what to say, I've worked so hard for this medal. I was eager to get this final out of the way, which luckily went very well. When I arrived and knew I was champion... it's incredible," he said. Cardona, a world champion with a formidable track record, won the first Catalan medal at these Games just minutes after Ana Alonso from Andalusia took bronze in the women's category. Cardona and Alonso will be looking for a second medal on Saturday in the pairs event.

The Trump administration is watching with some unease how many Olympic athletes have lost their fear. At the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezo, many American Olympians criticized Trump's policies, especially those related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the dreaded ICE. The most outspoken was Gus Kenworthy, a skier who won a silver medal in freestyle skiing at the 2014 Games. The 34-year-old skier posted a photo on social media showing his feet and a message written in the snow that could be interpreted as having been written with his urine. It read,Fuck ICE"It must be said that Kenworthy, a very popular figure because he is also an actor in action films and YouTuberHe decided in 2022 to stop competing as an American and do so as a British, although he was born in England, the son of an American father and a British mother, but by the age of three he was already living in Colorado.

In a Hollywood office, someone is already negotiating the rights to make a film about Elana Meyers Taylor's life. Her story deserves it because it has all the right ingredients: overcoming adversity, pain, a dream, and a happy ending. The Olympic Games, as is often the case in life, host stories as dark as the souls of many people, whether due to doping or corruption, but also others with their own light that move us. And Meyers Taylor's story is one of the latter, one of the good ones.

A lifetime dedicated to skiing. Quim Salarich was already carrying skis at the age of two, as he and his family would go up to the Pyrenees to spend quality time in La Molina. Like so many Catalan families. But his brother showed promise, and when they asked him if he wanted to compete, he ended up following in his footsteps. Three decades later, at 32, the Osona native has become the best Catalan alpine skier of all time. You have to go back to Paquito Fernández Ochoa – winner of a gold medal in Sapporo in 1972 in the slalom – to find a skier from the Spanish delegation with such impressive international results. "I'm arriving in good shape. Training has gone well," explains the skier born in Vic. He was the Spanish flag bearer at the opening ceremony, but decided not to stay in Italy and return home for several days to train in La Molina, a key location in his career. To train calmly, concentrate, and, incidentally, enjoy a calçotada (a traditional Catalan barbecue) with his friends. The weather didn't quite cooperate, with snow and wind, but Salarich believes he's arriving in peak form for Monday's slalom event. The challenge? To shake off the bitter taste of his previous Games.

Every four years, millions of people are captivated by curling, a sport in which stones are rolled across an ice rink, attempting to land them in the center of a target about 45 meters away, knocking the opposing team's stones out of the way. Social media is flooded with people imitating the athletes' movements and analyzing plays. The Sweden-Canada match ended in a heated exchange as the Swedes accused their opponents of cheating, with millions of users trying to determine who was right. Every four years, curling shines. "The Olympic Games are an opportunity for people to take the plunge and, after seeing it on television, be encouraged to try it," explains Carles de Moxó, president of Curling Puigcerdà, one of the clubs in Catalonia. Many people don't know it, but curling is also played here.

Julia Simon was destined to be an Olympian. Born in 1996 in Albertville, the city that hosted the 1992 Winter Olympics, she was already skiing as a child in a village that had been completely transformed after the Games. The Alps loomed in the background. And the streets were lined with the five Olympic rings, a reminder of the event. Simon chose biathlon, the cross-country skiing discipline where you carry a rifle on your back and have to stop to fire and demonstrate your marksmanship. It quickly became clear that she had a bright future: she won French championships and World Cup events. Before these Games, she had already been a world champion several times. No one doubted her talent. And, in fact, she has already won two gold medals at these Games. But Simon carries a burden: a few months ago, she was found guilty of theft and digital fraud for using other people's credit cards. In her hometown of Albertville, she appeared before a judge who sentenced her to three months in jail, a sentence she could not serve due to her lack of a criminal record. If the crime was already serious, it was made even more so by the fact that the people she robbed were teammates on the national biathlon team.

When Queralt Castellet (Sabadell, 1989) made her Olympic debut, she was still in high school and studying for Catalan literature exams during training. That debut was back in 2006, at the Turin Games, on the Bardonecchia slope. Twenty years later, Castellet participated in her sixth Olympic Games in the same setting, the Italian Alps, although a bit further east, in Livigno. The skier from the Vallès region couldn't win a medal in a halfpipe final affected by the snow. The gold medal was surprisingly won by a 17-year-old, Choi Gaon, from South Korea. She secured it with a brilliant third run, recovering from a hard fall on her first run, in which she had injured herself. Gaon beat the overwhelming favorite, American Chloe Kim, and Japan's Mitsuko Ono, who finished third. Of the three medalists, two weren't even born when Queralt was already competing in the Games. "Returning to the Games in the Alps has brought back so many memories. I still feel the same excitement; I have butterflies in my stomach from nerves. It was in Turin in 2006 when I knew for sure that I wanted to win an Olympic medal," said Castellet before a final in which she finished in tenth place.

Viewers in Norway watching the Olympic Games live on NRK were stunned by what they were seeing. Sturla Holm Laegreid had just won the bronze medal in the 20km biathlon and, when interviewed about his sporting success, launched into an astonishing monologue. "There's someone I wanted to share this with, even though she might not be watching. Six months ago, I met the love of my life: the most beautiful and kindest person in the world. And three months ago, I made my biggest mistake: I cheated on her." The journalist was just as surprised as the viewers.

Controversy in the Winter Olympic Games Milan-Cortina due to possible cheating by some athletes. This January, the German newspaper Bild It was reported that Norwegian ski jumpers were injecting hyaluronic acid into their penises before being measured for their competition suits. The substance, which is not banned in the sport, can be used to increase the circumference of the penis by one or two centimeters. As a result of this practice, the surface area of ​​the competitors' suits would be wider, and according to the International Ski and Snowboard Federation, this could increase the length of their jumps. This investigation has generated a major scandal, already dubbed the "Ski Jumping Scandal." Penisgatewhich has caused a stir worldwide.

SnowboardSkateboarding, skateboarding, and surfing. Three spectacular sports, ideal for brave people who enjoy adventure. Three sports that involve taking risks and traveling many kilometers in search of snow or the perfect wave. Three sports that appear in the social media biography of Nora Cornell (Girona, 2005), a young woman. snowboarder who is making her Olympic debut. She has practiced all three sports, but excels in one.

Everything is ready in Italy for the Winter Olympics. The opening ceremony will be held at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan, although some competitions already began on Wednesday in preliminary rounds, with an initial scare when the lights failed in the curling hall. The third Winter Games held in Italy so far have the home team fielding a large delegation hoping to win medals against traditional powerhouses like Austria, Germany, Norway, the United States, and Canada. These Games, still without the sanctioned Russia, are exploring a model with different venues throughout the Alps—never before have there been so many sub-venues and such a large territory—and with sports making their debut, all in an effort to create competitive and spectacular Winter Games in the context of climate change. However, unlike four years ago in China, the weather has cooperated, with heavy snowfall.

Next Friday, no one will call any goal at Milan's Giuseppe Meazza stadium. For once, San Siro will forget about football as it is the stage for... The opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games, an event that will take place from February 6 to 22 in the Italian Alps and the Lombard capital, with the Cortina d'Ampezo resort as the central venue for many ski events.

If Bernat Solà (Mataró, 1965) had been born in another country, perhaps a film would have been made about him. For more than a decade, this man from the Maresme region carved out a place for himself among the world's best springboard divers. Despite the lack of a strong tradition in the sport, Solà participated in two Winter Olympic Games and led strikes to defend athletes' rights. Suffering falls and living far from home, he earned the respect of foreign divers in a sport that, just as he retired, disappeared in Spain. Now nobody dives in Catalonia. In part, because there are no more springboards left in the Pyrenees.

In 2022, Queralt Castellet from Sabadell became the first Catalan to win a medal at the Winter Olympic Games In a sport, the halfpipewhich has no facilities in Catalonia. Now, skater Nil Llop (El Prat de Llobregat, 2000) will make his Olympic debut this February in a sport that also lacks facilities in our country: speed skating. In both cases, these are athletes who have left home for many months to pursue their dreams.

The Winter Olympics became a hot potato for Pere Aragonès's government, which Salvador Illa's administration is now willing to rescue. The president of the Generalitat (Catalan government) expressed his "complete agreement" with the proposal made this past weekend by the Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sports and leader of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) in Aragon, Pilar Alegría, to revive the joint bid to host the Winter Olympics. Isla's willingness to revive the project, which the previous administration ultimately rejected, has already reactivated the opposition of the Stop Olympics platform, which has warned that it will not stand idly by if this commitment materializes.

The Catalan government will postpone the consultation on the Winter Olympics scheduled for July 24 until early autumn, as advanced by Catalunya Ràdio's El Matí and confirmed by ARA. This is because no definitive project has yet been approved by the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE). Later this Friday Catalan Presidency minister Laura Vilagrà will appear before the press to announce the change. Government sources argue that the goal is to hold the vote when the project for the Olympics is complete and the latest disagreements with Aragon on the distribution of the venues mean that the COE may still make changes.