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Winter Olympics 2026 guide: All you need to know about the Milan Cortina Games

The start of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy is days away.

The torch relay is nearly complete and some of the top athletes are already making headlines. There are 16 sports in all, including some never seen before, and 116 gold medals are waiting to be awarded.

Milan’s San Siro stadium is the venue for Friday’s opening ceremony, which is usually the most viewed moment of the Games as millions around the world will watch on official broadcasters. U.S. pop star Mariah Carey, crossover tenor Andrea Bocelli are among the performers. It begins at 8 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Eastern).

This will be the most spread-out Winter Games in history: The two primary competition sites are the city of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, the winter resort in the Dolomites that is more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) away by road. Athletes also will compete in three other mountain clusters besides Cortina, while the closing ceremony will be in Verona, 160 kilometers (100 miles) east of Milan.

Preliminary heats began on Wednesday. Check here for a daily schedule.

Key dates to know

Competition runs Feb. 4-22. Here are some of the dates to mark on your calendar:

Feb. 4: Competition begins (curling).

Feb. 6: Opening ceremony.

Feb. 7: First gold medal events.

Feb. 8: Gold medal, women’s Alpine skiing downhill.

Feb. 13: Gold medal, men’s figure skating.

Feb. 18: Gold medal, women’s Alpine skiing slalom.

Feb. 19: Gold medal, women’s figure skating. Gold medal game, women’s ice hockey. First gold medals in ski mountaineering, a new Olympic sport.

Feb. 22: Gold medal game, men’s ice hockey. Closing ceremony.

How to watch

Dozens of countries will stream or air each day’s events, with some of them delaying broadcasts until prime time depending on the time zone. That will be the case in the U.S., where Eastern time is six hours behind Milan and Cortina. NBC will carry showcase events at night while streaming sports on Peacock.

Top storylines

Athletes to watch: Two of the most decorated Alpine skiers in history, 41-year-old Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin, opened the World Cup season in dominant form. Vonn still plans to compete despite rupturing her ACL last week. Eileen Gu is back in freestyle skiing, as is Chloe Kim in snowboarding. NHL players are back on Olympic ice for the first time since 2014 so watch for the likes of Sidney Crosby and Connor McDavid.

Venues: All eyes are on the hockey arenas in Milan, which were still under construction in January; the main rink will be about 3 feet shorter than NHL and PWHL players are used to. And the athletes’ village in Cortina is a collection of more than 350 mobile homes.

Russian athletes: A handful of Russians are competing as neutral athletes — after they were cleared by an independent review to ensure that they have not publicly supported the war in Ukraine and are not affiliated with Russia’s military or other forces.

What’s new: Ski mountaineering will make its Olympic debut while skeleton has added a mixed team event, luge has added women’s doubles and large hill ski jumping added women’s and men’s super team events.

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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Grandfather recovering from surgery after bison attack at Yellowstone sent him flying

By WTOP Staff
(CNN) — What started as a yearly trip for a grandfather and his grandson turned into a visit to a Montana hospital after a bison attack at Yellowstone National Park.Carl McDaniel, 65, was hospitalized with a broken femur after a bison charged and tossed him into the air Friday evening at the park’s Bridge Bay Campground, according to McDaniel and the National Park Service.He was visiting the park with his 13-year-old grandson when they decided to take a walk after dinner.Along the way, they encountered a large bison that appeared to be rolling around in the dust and was not bothering anyone, McDaniel told CNN.“We were about a hundred yards away,” McDaniel said. “He was not aggressive; he was not having problems and we took some pictures and decided to walk on.”McDaniel and his grandson snapped a quick photo and continued with their walk, video of the encounter shows. At the same time, a truck drove by, and the driver laid on his horn in what appeared to be an attempt to get the bison to move, McDaniel said. There is no audio on the video.The bison then appeared to become agitated and began running toward the pair.“There was little time to decide what to do. At that point, he was within 100 yards; he could be to us in seconds, so I told my grandson to run in one direction and I went the other to try and draw him away,” McDaniel said.The animal then pushed McDaniel with the top of its head, sending him flying into the air before he hit the ground, the grandfather said.“When I was on the ground immobile, unable to move, he was right on top of me. He could have stomped on me, he could have gored me, he could have done almost anything to take my life, and he did not do so,” McDaniel said.After McDaniel hit the ground, photographer Mike MacLeod, who captured the encounter on video, had to step in, he told Cowboy State Daily.“I was really afraid he was going to gore the guy on the ground, so I stopped videotaping and ran at the bison, yelled loud, and was trying to be as big and intimidating as possible,” MacLeod said.After the bison took off, people rushed over to McDaniel, who was in a lot of pain, MacLeod told Cowboy State Daily. Yellowstone EMS arrived soon after, he said.“Park emergency medical personnel responded and transported him to a nearby hospital,” the National Park Service said in confirming the incident in a statement to CNN.This is the second bison attack at Yellowstone this year. A 12-year-old was injured near Mud Volcano on June 26, according to the agency.After Friday’s attack, “all the people that were there were amazing; they were all positive, they were trying to help as best they could,” McDaniel said. A nurse started tending to his leg, while another bystander held his head.He was then transferred to a hospital in Bozeman, a two-hour journey during which he was in intense pain. He said he was grateful for the paramedic who helped him along the way.McDaniel broke his femur, the body’s strongest bone, in four places near his hip and suffered several bruises. He had surgery Sunday and could stand by Monday.“I will be doing physical therapy for the next few days to get to walk, but it was not as catastrophic as it could have been,” McDaniel said.The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards away from bison at all times and to never approach the animals. “If the bison follows you, spray bear spray as you are moving away, and seek cover behind nearby trees or cars,” the agency said.Correction: An earlier version of this story understated how far visitors should stay away from bison. The National Park Service advises visitors to stay at least 25 yards from them.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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