Mikaela Shiffrin. Alysa Liu. The U.S. women's hockey team. And that's just the start.
at the 2026 Winter Games, which is the most it’s won since Vancouver in 2010. The U.S. won 12 gold medals, too, which is more than it’s ever won atWinter Games. Sure, the USA lagged behind Norway in the overall medal count, but there’s no shame in that.
There were approximately 900 cross-country-related events at the Milan Cortina Olympics, and Norway medaled in almost all of them. Adjust for the Scandinavian nation’s hyper-competence in that one specific discipline, and you couldWhile it was a great Winter Games for Team USA by pretty much every measure, it was especially great for theof Team USA. America’s female Olympians were responsible for 21 of those 33 total medals, and eight of those 12 golds. American women won as many gold medals as the entire nations of Germany, France, and Sweden and as many overall medals as Canada. And, with apologies toafter eight years away, a return that turned tragic when the 41-year-old skier—who, to be clear, was a legit medal contender—crashed and broke her leg in the first few seconds of the downhill. I’ve already forgotten what I had for lunch today, but the sight of a supine Vonn dangling in the sky, being carried away by a medevac helicopter, will be seared into my brain forever.Elsewhere in the Alpine skiing program, World Cup legend Mikaela Shiffrin came to Cortina hoping to make up for her inexplicably awful performance in Beijing in 2022. After unremarkable races in the team combined and giant slalom events, she returned to form in the slalom finals, winning her first slalom gold since 2014. Not only did Shiffrin leave CortinaIf we’re talking redemption arcs, then we’ve got to talk about short-track speedskater Corinne Stoddard. After crashing and breaking her nose in her very first race at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, Stoddard came to Milan hoping to stay upright and win some medals. But when the 2026 Winter Games began, Stoddard just kept on crashing, again and again. It got so bad that she wrote an anguished, dark-night-of-the-soul Instagram post in which she apologized to her friends and family for letting them down. Then, in her final race of the Winter Games, Stoddard didn’t just remain upright:Who had a more cathartic Olympics than Elana Meyers Taylor? The 41-year-old bobsledder had won medals in each of her preceding four Winter Olympic appearances, but she had never won gold. A mother of two young special-needs children, Meyers Taylor made major sacrifices to get back to the Winter Games. When she beat out Germany’s Laura Nolte by 0.04 seconds in the women’s monobob and claimed the gold medal she’d been chasing for so long, she hugged her children tight while clutching an American flag. No matter how cynical you are about the Olympics—andIf any American deserves a lifetime achievement award for Olympic inspiration, it’s cross-country skier Jessie Diggins. Eight years ago,when, with teammate Kikkan Randall, she won a completely unexpected gold in the women’s team sprint—America’s first cross-country skiing medal of any sort in more than 40 years. Diggins has only gotten better since 2018, and came into her final Winter Games expected to contend for multiple medals. While she only ended up winning one, her bronze in the 10-kilometer freestyle was the most fitting possible way for the grittiest woman on Team USA to conclude her Olympics career. In her very first race at the Milan Cortina Games, Diggins fell and bruised her ribs. Days later, skiing in excruciating pain, she sprinted across the finish line in the 10-kilometer race and immediately collapsed, crying out in agony as she writhed on the ground. “Have youAs great as the U.S. men’s hockey team’s overtime victory over Canada was, I would argue that thewas even greater. The rivalry between the American and Canadian women’s hockey teams is one of the best in all of sports, made greater by the infrequency—and utter unpredictability—of their quadrennial meetings. With the exception of the 2006 Games, the gold-medal match in women’s hockey has always come down to the U.S and Canada, and the U.S. has lost more often than they’ve won. Their overtime victory this year, settled on a golden goal by Megan Keller, sets the stage for their next grudge match four years from now in the French Alps. I know I’ll be watching.created some exciting moments. On the other hand, the most interesting things about the 21-year-old Stolz at this point in his life are, while “Mac Forehand” is clearly a fake name. Ben Ogden also did great in cross-country skiing, but not nearly as great as Johannes Høsflot Klæbo, whose six gold medals told the story of men’s cross-country skiing. And sure, won mixed doubles curling silver alongside Cory Thiesse , but let’s be real: Without Cory, Korey wouldn’t have even been at the Olympics!The U.S. Had a Crazy Strategy to Beat Canada for Men’s Hockey Gold. I Can’t Believe It Worked.spoke out passionately against ICE, the only truly compelling American male Olympian was Ilia Malinin, and the vaunted Quad God sadlywhen it was his time to shine. Malinin did his best Olympics work at the figure skating exhibition gala, and even there he was less memorable thanBut even if Malinin would have lived up to his advance hype, his performance would have been eventually overshadowed by that of, Liu eradicated the “ice princess” prototype in women’s figure skating. In a sport where the top competitors are forever skating scared, she glided across the ice in obvious delight to “MacArthur Park,” which is frankly one of the silliest songs of all time. There was nothing stressful or portentous about her performance. Liu’s routine was pure joy.That gold-medal skate reminded us that sports don’t have to be stressful and serious. Even at the Olympics—an event that is too often overburdened by its own sense of self-importance—they can be joyful, inspiring, and fun. Two weeks ago, at the outset of the Winter Games, amid a politically chaotic and utterly depressing start to this calendar year,that the Milan Cortina Games might give us the exciting, engaging, life-affirming break that we all desperately needed. I hope these Olympics did that for you, because they did it for me. And I have the women of Team USA to thank.
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