#us-olympic-medal-drought

#us-olympic-medal-drought

The period between the 2022 Olympics and the 2026 Olympics might have been some of the best years yet for the Japanese women's hockey team. In 2022, the team secured a fifth-place finish at the IIHF Women's World Championship. Three years later, Japan would win gold at both the Asian Winter Games and the IIHF Asian Championship. And just recently, the Japanese women's hockey team won gold at the second edition of the IIHF Asian Championship.

Billionaire Ross Stevens wants to change that. Beginning with next month's Milan Cortina Games, he will give $200,000 to every U.S. Olympic and Paralympic athlete, regardless of if they win, in a move to help them gain financial security. Stevens, the founder and CEO of Stone Ridge Holdings Group, donated $100 million to the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) for the program in 2025. It was the largest gift in the organization's history.

Levito and the United States' "Blade Angels" are trying to stay calm under pressure at the Olympics, where chaos has reigned at Milano Ice Skating Arena. The United States was expected to dominate figure skating in Milan, but has yet to win a gold medal in an individual event entering Tuesday's women's short program. A supposed sure-fire gold medal disappeared in stunning fashion with Ilia Malinin's eighth-place collapse.

GROUP PLAY (Feb 11-15): The 12 countries play a round-robin within their respective groups, with three games per team. Teams earn three points for a regulation win, two points for overtime or shootout wins, one point for overtime or shootout losses, and zero points for regulation losses. GROUP A: Canada, Czechia, France. Switzerland GROUP B: Finland, Italy, Slovakia, Sweden GROUP C: Denmark, Germany, Latvia, United States

Megan Keller scored the gold-medal-winning goal 4:07 into overtime to lift the United States to a remarkable 2-1 victory over Canada for the Olympic title at the 2026 Winter Games in Milan-Cortina on Thursday. Keller took a long stretch pass and made a nifty deke through Claire Thompson before slipping the puck under Canadian goalie Ann-Renee Desbiens for an instantly iconic golden goal.

If the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics opening ceremony was a love letter to Italian heritage, the final day was a thunderous operatic finale, a crescendo of clashing sticks, soaring amplitude and the bittersweet tears of legends taking their final bows. As the sun dipped behind the peaks of the Dolomites for the last time this fortnight, the Olympic flame did not just flicker out it was passed from the high-fashion streets of Milan to the ancient stones of Verona.

In warm, soft snow conditions with rain falling, the competition was anything but easy. From the qualification round, 16 women advanced to the finals, with Tess Johnson leading the qualification round ahead of Australia's Jakara Anthony and teammate Olivia Giaccio in third. Also advancing from Team USA were Olympic silver medalist Jaelin Kauf in fifth place and Kasey Hogg in seventh place.

VAL DI FIEMME, Italy - Vermont cross-country ski racer Ben Ogden pulled off a feat today at the Tesero Cross-Country Skiing Stadium in Val di Fiemme, Italy, that no men's U.S. skier has accomplished since 1976 ascending a podium at a Winter Olympics. Ogden, 25, won silver, finishing behind Johannes Klaebo of Norway. Oskar Vike of Norway finished in third place, claiming bronze.

After beating Canada 3-1 during group play of the Four Nations Faceoff, you could make an argument for the United States to be considered the favourite to win gold in the final. But just five days later, in that same game, the United States could not get the job done, ultimately succumbing to Canada 3-2 in overtime. Almost a year later, that loss still stings. A lot.

Olympic winter sports must be played on snow and ice, according to the Olympic Charter. But could a muddy field of play get its chance at a future Winter Games, even as soon as in the French Alps in 2030 or Salt Lake City in 2034? How about parquet in an indoor hall? Snow volleyball is ready and waiting. Those and other sports

The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics are set to be quite a show, with many of our favorite athletes getting ready to perform and compete at one of the world's biggest sporting events. This year a new sport is set to make its Winter Olympic debut: ski mountaineering, and while France, Switzerland, and Spain will be sending the most athletes, two top competitors are set to represent the United States in one of the three Ski Mountaineering events.

Brad Hall's Team GB are next. They get off quick with 4.78 start but with perfection required this is a little short. There are a couple of errors in turns one and two, with speed not picking up further down the course. The time of 54.66secs is much better than their second run (55.04) but Lochner's team is further off in the distance, 1.23secs ahead.