Where Are the 2026 Winter Olympics? All About the Milan Cortina Games

NEED TO KNOW

• The Winter Olympics 2026 are happening in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy
• The special sports event will feature over 3,500 athletes, representing 93 countries and 16 disciplines
• In addition, other Northern Italian towns will host different sports

Italy is welcoming the world’s greatest athletes to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo.

The 2026 Olympics mark the fourth time Italy has hosted the Olympic Games, and this edition features a co-hosting format.

Milan will serve as the hub for indoor events like ice hockey, figure skating and speed skating, while Cortina d’Ampezzo, one of the world’s most storied mountain resorts, will be the center of skiing, snowboarding and curling.

Additional events will be sprinkled across other northern Italian venues, including Valtellina and Val di Fiemme.

For the United States audience, Peacock is streaming every sports match live, but if the six-hour time difference feels daunting, full-event replays will make it easy to watch later.

Here’s everything to know about the Winter Olympics 2026.

When do the 2026 Winter Olympics start?

The 2026 Winter Olympics will run from Feb. 4 through Feb. 22.

The nearly three-week sports extravaganza begins with the Opening Ceremony on Feb. 6 in Milan’s San Siro Stadio.

Mariah Carey is slated to perform, alongside renowned Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, The White Lotus’ Sabrina Impacciatore and pianist Lang Lang.

Coverage of the event begins on NBC and Peacock at 12 p.m. ET on Friday, Feb. 6, with primetime coverage kicking off at 8 p.m. ET.

While the Milan Cortina Games officially start with the Opening Ceremony, there is early competition on Feb. 4 and Feb. 5 for sports like curling, hockey, luge, skiing and snowboarding.

Where are the 2026 Winter Olympics happening?

The 2026 Winter Olympics will unfold in multiple regions and venues across Milan and Cortina.

The Northern Italian duo put in a joint bid to host the Games to the International Olympic Committee in 2018 and officially beat out Sweden’s Stockholm and Åre submission in 2019, per the Olympics website. Italy’s competitive edge was due to 93% of its venues being pre-existing or temporary structures.

The majority of the events will be hosted by Milan (Milano), the second most populous Italian city after Rome, and the economic capital. Cortina d’Ampezzo is an Alpine ski resort town in the Dolomiti Superski area.

A few other towns will also host Olympic events like Alpine skiing, ski mountaineering, ski jumping and Nordic combined, including Rasen-Antholz, Bormio, Livigno, Predazzo and Tesero.

This will be the fourth time that Italy has hosted the Winter Olympics. The first was Cortina in 1956, followed by Turin in 2006. In addition, the country hosted the Summer Olympics in Rome in 1960.

Which countries are competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics?

There are 93 nations represented by over 3,500 athletes in 16 disciplines, as well as six Paralympic sports.

Team USA’s Mikaela Shiffrin, a three-time Olympic medalist,  is on the hunt for her second giant slalom gold medal. Lindsay Vonn will be the oldest competitive female Alpine skier at the Games after coming off a five-year retirement. She is the only American woman to win a gold medal in Olympic downhill skiing and has previously won 12 World Cup races in Cortina.

The man with one of the most unique nicknames, Ilia “Quad God” Malinin, will be taking his high-flying act to the ice. The reigning world champion has the distinction of being the first and only skater to complete a quadruple axel in international competition and recently became the only skater to land seven quadruple jumps in one program.

Hometown favorites Stefania Constantini and Amos Mosaner from Italy have never lost in an international curling competition. They went undefeated during their first Games in Beijing in 2022. After a three-year hiatus, they ran the table again at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. Mosaner will be a flag bearer in the Opening Ceremony.

Czechia’s Ester Ledecká won gold medals in the Super-G (Alpine skiing) and the parallel giant slalom (snowboarding) at the 2018 PyeongChang Games, making her a two-sport champion. She followed that up with another gold in parallel giant slalom at the 2022 Beijing Games. The Winter Olympics 2026 schedule will not allow her to attempt another double, so she will compete in snowboarding. If she wins, she will be the first snowboarder to win gold at three consecutive Olympics.

National Hockey League (NHL) players are returning to the Olympics for the first time since 2014. Canada is a favorite with a stacked roster, including NHL stars Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Cale Makar. Fans are hoping for a rematch of the 4 Nations Face-Off in 2025, which saw Canada defeat the USA 3-2 in overtime.

Laila Edwards will become the first Black woman to play ice hockey for the U.S. Women’s Olympic Team at the Milano Cortina Games. The University of Wisconsin star won two national championships under coach Mark Johnson, who was a member of the 1980 ‘Miracle on Ice’ hockey team.

What is the 2026 Winter Olympics schedule?

Eight new events have been added to the Olympic lineup, including the debut of ski mountaineering (skimo) and new mixed-gender and women’s events in luge, ski jumping, skeleton, freestyle skiing and alpine skiing.

Otherwise, the Games will feature the full slate of core Winter Olympic sports spread across Italy’s urban and alpine venues.

Alpine skiing (downhill, slalom, giant slalom, Super-G) will dominate the mountain program at Cortina d’Ampezzo and Bormio from about Feb. 7 to 18. Figure skating takes center ice in Milan from Feb. 6 to 19, alongside short track and long-track speed skating.

Ice hockey and curling will also run throughout the Games in Milan and Cortina, with medal rounds and finals late in the schedule.

Nordic events, like cross-country skiing, biathlon, ski jumping and Nordic combined, are hosted in the Val di Fiemme and Anterselva valleys across mid-February.

Freestyle skiing and snowboarding, including crowd-favorites like halfpipe, slopestyle, big air, ski cross, snowboard cross, and dual moguls, take place in the Livigno Snow Park cluster.

Where can I watch the 2026 Winter Olympics?

In the United States, the bulk of the Winter Olympics coverage will come from NBCUniversal’s platforms, including NBC, USA Network and CNBC.

NBC will have at least five hours of live coverage per day from the morning through the afternoon. The action picks up again at night with Primetime in Milan, where veteran sportscaster Mike Tirico recaps the day's most captivating events and adds a human element with athlete features.

CNBC will return with its tradition of comprehensive curling coverage at the end of the business day. Meanwhile, USA Network is the hub for 24/7 Team USA-centric programming across multiple sports, like hockey, alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and snowboarding.

The entirety of the Winter Olympics will be streamed on Peacock, meaning that viewers will have a front-row seat to all 116 medal events. For those unable to keep up with the Games via television or streaming, scores, standings, team rosters, medal counts and schedules will be available on NBCOlympics.com.

The Games will culminate with a Closing Ceremony in Verona’s historic Arena di Verona on Feb. 22, making it the first Olympic Ceremony to take place at a World Heritage Site. The celebration will also spill out to Piazza Bra and the Verona Philharmonic Theatre. The theme is Beauty in Action, which is described as "a tribute to beauty in motion, in all its forms: present in sport, reflected in art, nourished by human connection, and expressed by the places that host the Games."

The ceremony will feature acclaimed Italian étoile Roberto Bolle and Milan Cortina will make the flag handover to the French Alps, who will host the 2030 Olympic Winter Games.

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