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Ski Mountaineering Makes Its Olympic Debut at Milan Cortina 2026

A 36-athlete slate in Bormio narrows the sport to sprints plus a mixed relay.

Overview

  • Three medal events will be contested in Bormio: men’s sprint, women’s sprint and a mixed relay, with television coverage on USA Network and streaming on Peacock and NBC Olympics platforms.
  • The field is capped at 36 competitors, with 18 athletes in each sprint and 12 countries in the mixed relay, and organizers say tickets have sold out.
  • The sprint features an uphill skin, a brief bootpack and a downhill run on a short, groomed course with about 70 meters of elevation change.
  • In the mixed relay, teams of one woman and one man each complete two laps on a longer course, with the woman starting and the man finishing.
  • Spain’s Oriol Cardona Coll and France’s Emily Harrop enter as leading contenders, while Team USA missed sprint berths but qualified a mixed-relay pair after Cam Smith and Anna Gibson won a World Cup in Utah.