The 2026 Winter Olympics are officially 100 days away. To mark the occasion, here’s a sport-by-sport look at 100 notable athletes to watch in the lead-up to the Milan-Cortina Games — medal favorites, rising stars ready to break through and more.
Not all of the athletes below have qualified yet, and surely others could’ve made this list, but these are among the names to follow as qualification unfolds this winter and the Games approach.
Alpine skiing
Federica Brignone, Italy: The 35-year-old was on track to be Italy’s top hope in women’s Alpine skiing after winning the overall World Cup title a year ago. But in the final race of her season, she suffered multiple broken bones in a crash. She’s trying to get back in time for the Games, but her return remains uncertain.
Lara Gut-Behrami, Switzerland: Among active Alpine skiers, Gut-Behrami is behind only Mikaela Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn on the World Cup wins list. She’s the defending Olympic gold medalist and World Cup season champion in the super-G.
Ryan Cochran-Siegle, United States: Cochran-Siegle returned from a neck injury to win the silver medal in the men’s super-G at the Beijing Games. Last year, he reached his third career World Cup podium, finishing third in a downhill in Val Gardena, Italy.
Sofia Goggia, Italy: Along with Brignone, the 32-year-old Goggia will be the top home hope. She has 26 career World Cup wins and was the downhill gold medalist at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Norway: Kilde has had a miserable two years recovering from injury, but he has said recently he’s hoping to compete in Italy. He has 21 World Cup wins and picked up two medals in Beijing.
Henrik Kristoffersen, Norway: The current men’s slalom king, with 25 World Cup wins in the discipline, has yet to top the podium at the Olympics. He won bronze in Sochi in 2014, then missed a gate and was disqualified in 2018, then finished fourth in Beijing.
Lauren Macuga, United States: The rising 23-year-old made a leap last year, finishing fourth in the World Cup standings in downhill and making two podiums, including a super-G win.
Marco Odermatt, Switzerland: Odermatt won giant slalom gold in Beijing, and in the time since, he has become the dominant force in men’s Alpine, with four straight overall World Cup titles, four straight giant slalom titles, three straight in super-G and two in a row in downhill.
Mikaela Shiffrin, United States: The winningest Alpine skier of all time, Shiffrin won slalom gold in Sochi and giant slalom gold in Pyeongchang. She went to Beijing set to compete in — and perhaps medal in — every event. Instead, she crashed out three times and missed the podium in all six of them. Shiffrin, 30, will pare down her schedule for 2026 and is still recovering from an injury that cost her two months of last season, but she will be the favorite in at least the slalom.
Lindsey Vonn, United States: At 41, she’s making an unlikely comeback — and looking like a medal contender. She finished second at the season-ending World Cup race in Idaho in March against Olympic-level competition. She’ll be competing on a slope she knows quite well; Vonn is a 12-time World Cup winner in Cortina d’Ampezzo. She’ll likely have three shots at a medal — in downhill, super-G and combined — in what she says will be her final Games.
Lindsey Vonn of the United States. (PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP via Getty Images)
Biathlon
Quentin Fillon Maillet, France: The 33-year-old has four golds and 10 total medals at world championships since the Beijing Olympics, where he won two golds.
Julia Simon, France: The mixed relay silver medalist in Beijing, Simon has won nine world championship golds since then and was the overall World Cup champion in 2022-23.
Campbell Wright, United States: The U.S. has never won an Olympic biathlon medal, but the 23-year-old Wright could be the one to do it. Born in New Zealand to American parents, he switched two years ago to compete for his parents’ home country. He was the silver medalist in two events at the 2025 world championships.
Campbell Wright of the United States. (FRANCK FIFE / AFP via Getty Images)
Bobsled
Francesco Friedrich and Johannes Lockner, Germany: The pilots of the dominant German team’s top squads, these two have combined to sweep the golds at the last seven world championships in the four-man and the last five in the two-man, while also finishing 1-2 at the Beijing Olympics.
Kaillie Humphries, United States: Humphries, 40, won two Olympic golds for Canada before switching to compete for the United States. At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she won gold in the monobob and is a three-time world champion since the change.
Elana Meyers Taylor, United States: The 41-year-old is vying for her fifth Olympics and has medaled at each of the past four Games. Her five total medals are more than anyone in Olympic women’s bobsled’s 24-year history.
Elana Meyers Taylor of the United States. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
Cross-country skiing
Jessie Diggins, United States: The best cross-country skier in American history, the 34-year-old Minnesotan will try to make it three consecutive Games with medals. She won an individual silver and bronze in Beijing and paired with Kikkan Randall for team sprint gold in 2018.
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, Norway: Five Olympic gold medals since 2018. Fifteen world titles since 2019, including an unprecedented sweep of six events at this year’s edition. His 98 World Cup wins are more than double those of the second-place finisher on the men’s list. The 29-year-old is incomparable in the sport and likely headed for a big haul in Italy.
Ben Ogden and Gus Schumacher, United States: The two 25-year-old Americans are getting better and showing the ability to hang with the best. Both made World Cup podiums last season. Bill Koch’s silver medal in 1976 is the only American men’s cross-country medal at the Olympics.
Jonna Sundling, Sweden: The 30-year-old won three medals, including gold in the individual sprint, at the Beijing Games and followed that with five golds across the two world championships since.
Johannes Høsflot Klæbo of Norway. (JONATHAN NACKSTRAND / AFP via Getty Images)
Curling
Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner, Italy: The Italian mixed doubles duo made undefeated runs to the Beijing Olympic gold medal and this year’s world-championship gold medal. They’ll be favorites on home soil.
Bruce Mouat, Great Britain: One of the most accomplished men’s curlers, Mouat will lead the British team that took silver in Beijing. The Edinburgh native also won this year’s world championships with Scotland.
Rachel Homan, Canada: Homan’s team didn’t represent Canada at the last Olympics, but she has now skipped her country to back-to-back world championships. The Canadian Olympic trials are next month.
Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner of Italy. (Lintao Zhang / Getty Images)
Figure skating
Madison Chock and Evan Bates, United States: Since finishing just off the podium in Beijing, the ice-dancing duo has won just about every major competition. They’re the four-time defending U.S. champions and, internationally, they’ve won the last two Grand Prix finals and the past three world championships.
Mone Chiba, Japan: The 20-year-old was the bronze medalist at the world championships in March and finished second in December’s Grand Prix final, the culmination of the sport’s annual season.
Amber Glenn, United States: A former U.S. junior champion, Glenn once seemed destined to be the future of the American squad. But she stepped away from the sport in 2015 for mental health reasons and struggled to regain her form when she returned. Now, though, she’s a contender for an Olympic medal after winning last year’s Grand Prix final.
Yuma Kagiyama, Japan: If anyone’s going to stop Malinin in the men’s competition, it’s probably Kagiyama. He was the runner-up to American Nathan Chen at the 2022 Beijing Olympics and a three-time silver medalist at worlds.
Alysa Liu, United States: The 20-year-old, Liu was the 2019 U.S. junior champion and a sixth-place finisher in Beijing but retired from the sport later in 2022, drained from the constant demands of elite competition. She returned for the 2024-25 season and won the world title this March in Boston.
Ilia Malinin, United States: If you only watch figure skating during the Olympics, you’ve been missing one of the best to ever do it. Nicknamed the “Quad God” for his audacious quadruple jumps, the 20-year-old Malinin has become the dominant force in men’s figure skating since Beijing. He’s poised to be the clear gold-medal favorite in Milan after not being selected for the 2022 team.
Adeliia Petrosian, Russia (competing as a neutral athlete): Several sports aren’t allowing Russians to compete at these Games, even under the “neutral athlete” banner the IOC permits. There will be no Russian team in the men’s hockey tournament, and the International Ski Federation recently barred Russians and Belarusians from competing in its qualifying events, which are among Russia’s strongest. But Petrosian was approved to compete after an International Skating Union screening and earned a qualifying spot for the women’s singles, where she likely will contend for a medal.
Kaori Sakamoto, Japan: The three-time world champion and bronze medalist at the Beijing Games plans to retire after these Olympics. She’s currently the world’s top-ranked skater.
Ilia Malinin of the United States. (GEOFF ROBINS / AFP via Getty Images)
Freestyle skiing
Eileen Gu, China: After “a very terrible accident” in August, the 22-year old is set to compete again in December in the Snow League — a halfpipe tour created by Shaun White. American-born, Gu competes for China and won two golds and a silver at the Beijing Games.
Alex Ferreira, United States: The 31-year-old, two-time halfpipe Olympic medalist has won the last two World Cup titles in the discipline.
Alex Hall, United States: The slopestyle gold medalist in Beijing, with an artistic way about him, will feel right at home in Italy. His mother is from there, and he spent much of his childhood in Zurich, Switzerland.
Jaelin Kauf, United States: Kauf won her first international gold medal at this year’s world championships, in the dual moguls. She was also the silver medalist in moguls in Beijing.
Mikaël Kingsbury, Canada: One of the most decorated freestyle skiers, the moguls specialist has 18 medals across the Olympics and worlds, including gold at the Pyeongchang Games.
Eileen Gu of China. (Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
Ice hockey
The men’s hockey tournament — the first since 2014 to feature NHL players — is likely to come down to Canada, United States, Finland and Sweden competing for the medals. Those countries (and all teams in the men’s tournament) named their “first six” players this summer, with the rest of the rosters to be decided later this year. We’ll use those players for our choices here.
Canada: Sidney Crosby, Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Brayden Point, Sam Reinhart
Finland: Sebastian Aho, Aleksander Barkov, Miro Heiskanen, Esa Lindell, Mikko Rantanen, Juuse Saros
United States: Jack Eichel, Quinn Hughes, Auston Matthews, Charlie McAvoy, Brady Tkachuk, Matthew Tkachuk
Sweden: Rasmus Dahlin, Victor Hedman, Adrian Kempe, Gabriel Landeskog, William Nylander, Lucas Raymond
We don’t have any selections on the women’s rosters yet, but the tournament is likely to come down to Canada vs. the United States. The two nations have contested six of the seven gold-medal games in Olympic history and have split all seven golds — five for Canada, two for the Americans. Earlier this year, our Hailey Salvian projected out the rosters for each. We’ll go with six of her top locks for Canada and the United States here.
Canada: Erin Ambrose, Ann-Renée Desbiens, Renata Fast, Sarah Fillier, Sarah Nurse, Marie-Philip Poulin
United States: Alex Carpenter, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Aerin Frankel, Caroline Harvey, Hilary Knight, Megan Keller
Marie-Philip Poulin of Canada. (Elsa / Getty Images)
Luge
Chevonne Chelsea Forgan and Sophia Kirby, United States: The pair won the first World Cup women’s doubles race of the year last season and were the bronze medalists at the 2024 world championships. The event will make its Olympic debut in 2026.
Max Langenhan, Germany: The 26-year-old will lead the dominant Germany in Cortina after winning the last two World Cup titles and six world titles across the last three years.
Emily Fischnaller, United States: The American won two silver medals at this year’s world championships and, like freestyler Alex Hall, will probably be quite comfortable in Italy. She and her Italian husband, also a luger, recently built a house not far from the Olympic luge venue in Cortina d’Ampezzo.
Julia Taubitz, Germany: Winner of the last three World Cup season titles, Taubitz will be the singles gold favorite in Cortina.
Chevonne Chelsea Forgan and Sophia Kirby of the United States. (Daniel Kopatsch / Getty Images)
Nordic combined
Jens Lurås Oftebro, Norway: In the sport that combines cross-country and ski jumping, the 25-year-old has been the top skier two of the past three World Cup seasons and won individual silver at this year’s world championships behind his now-retired countryman, Jarl Magnus Riiber.
Short-track speed skating
Choi Min-jeong, South Korea: With 20 golds across the Olympics and world championships, the 31-year-old is one of the most decorated skaters in the world. She’s the two-time defending Olympic champion and world-record holder in the 1,500-meter.
William Dandjinou, Canada: The Canadian star won three golds and a silver at the 2025 world championships and is a four-time winner across the first two World Tour events of the year.
Corinne Stoddard, United States: After two World Tour events so far this season, the 24-year-old Stoddard is ranked in the top three in the 500-, 1,000- and 1,500-meter distances.
Choi Min-jeong of South Korea. (Matthew Stockman / Getty Images)
Skeleton
Mystique Ro, United States: The 31-year-old former track athlete started competing in World Cup races in 2023 and last year won the first American world championship medal in 12 years, taking silver in the women’s event and gold in mixed team with Austin Florian. Mixed team will make its Olympic debut in February.
Matt Weston, Great Britain: Since finishing 15th at the Beijing Games, Weston has emerged as the sport’s best, with world titles in the men’s event in 2023 and 2025.
Mystique Ro of the United States. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
Ski jumping
Ryōyū Kobayashi, Japan: A gold medalist in Beijing and a two-time overall World Cup champion, Kobayashi just capped the Summer Grand Prix season with another win.
Domen and Nika Prevc, Slovenia: Earlier this year, days before her 20th birthday, Nika Prevc won two gold medals at the world championships, along with a silver. Her 26-year-old brother, Domen, pulled off the same feat.
Nika Prevc of Slovenia. (Lars Baron / Getty Images)
Ski mountaineering
Oriol Cardona Coll, Spain, and Emily Harrop, France: Ski mountaineering will make its Olympic debut in Italy with men’s and women’s sprint races and a mixed team event. Sprints are the specialty of both Coll, the 2025 world sprint champion, and Harrop, who topped the last World Cup season rankings.
Snowboarding
Red Gerard, United States: The slopestyle Olympic gold medalist in 2018, Gerard won the X Games crown in the event each of the past two seasons.
Scotty James, Australia: About the only thing missing from James’ resume is Olympic gold. He’s won four halfpipe world titles and seven X Games superpipe golds. His previous two Olympic bids ended in silver (Beijing) and bronze (Pyeongchang).
Chloe Kim, United States: The 25-year-old is the two-time defending gold medalist in halfpipe and hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down. She’s won the last two superpipe competitions at the X Games and won this year’s world championship in halfpipe.
Ester Ledecká, Czech Republic: Also a medal contender in Alpine skiing, Ledecká was forced to choose one for this Olympics with the two sports on opposite sides of the country. She’ll go with snowboarding, where she’s won the last two parallel giant slalom golds.
Zoi Sadowski-Synnott, New Zealand: The 20-year-old Sadowski-Synott took home two medals in Beijing, in slopestype and big air. She has four X Games golds since 2022 and was this year’s slopestyle world champion.
Chloe Kim of the United States. (Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Speed skating
Jenning de Boo, Netherlands: The 21-year-old is American star Jordan Stolz’s chief rival in the sprint distances. He won gold in the 500-meter at this year’s world championships.
Erin Jackson, United States: In 2022, Jackson became the first Black American to win speed skating gold. She’ll be looking to defend her 500-meter crown in Milan.
Jordan Stolz, United States: Our Will Sammon profiled Stolz before his Olympic debut at age 17 in 2022. In Beijing, he finished 13th in the 500-meter event and 14th in the 1,000-meter. Four years later, he’s the top speed skater in the world and poised for a major breakout. He was the World Cup winner across both those distances and the 1,500 last season.
Miho Takagi, Japan: The 31-year-old boasts seven Olympic and 16 world championship medals, including golds in the 1,000-meter at the Beijing Games and the last two worlds.
Miho Takagi of Japan. (INCENT JANNINK / ANP / AFP via Getty Images)