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The International Olympic Committee has boasted that Milano-Cortina 2026 is “the most gender-balanced Olympic Winter Games in history”. But there’s actually one sport women don’t even get to try. For all the claims about “the highest level of female participation in Winter Games history”, the door is “slammed shut” for women in Nordic combined, said The Independent. The three Olympic events where athletes compete in both ski jumping and cross-country skiing are strictly men-only, despite there being equivalent women’s World Cup and World Championship events. ‘Misogynistic mindset’ Nordic combined has been part of the Winter Olympics since its beginnings in...

Casey Wasserman, the chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, is selling his eponymous talent agency in the wake of the release of emails between himself and Ghislaine Maxwell. Wasserman's emails with Maxwell were revealed by his appearance in recently released government files on Jeffrey Epstein. Wasserman, whose agency represents some of the top pop music artists in the world, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. The recently released documents revealed that in 2003 he swapped flirtatious emails with Maxwell, who would years later be accused of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse his victims. Wasserman said...

NBC's streaming service Peacock has experienced bugs and errors throughout its coverage of the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina. Perhaps the biggest and most inconvenient one has been when the broadcasts randomly cut to advertisements in the midst of the action. While this issue has been prevalent throughout the games, it's biggest offense came during Sunday morning's coverage of the men's hockey match between Canada and France. Canada, the heavy favorites for the gold medal, was up 10-2 in a demolition of Les Blues when the streamer suddenly cut to a commercial break in the middle of the action....

NBC News issued an apology after calling a female Olympic skiing competitor by her actual pronouns. Elis Lundholm, who competed in women’s moguls during the Winter Olympics, is indeed a female, but she claims male identity and uses male pronouns. The Swedish athlete also wears baggy clothing and has a masculine haircut.

"I think it’s really unfair. I think it’s punishing excellence, to be completely honest with you," Gu added. "Because I dare to do three events, and this is making it completely impossible to train fairly for the third event." FIS scheduled three training sessions before qualifying – an increase from two for a typical World Cup event. The organization’s spokesman, Bruno Sassi, said, "Every effort has been made to facilitate the best possible training" for the athletes.

Canadian women’s curling skip Rachel Homan sounded off Saturday after she had a rock pulled in an 8-7 loss to Switzerland, claiming she was unfairly punished for a ‘double-touching’ controversy involving Canada and Sweden in the men’s draw. Homan’s first rock of the game was pulled by the umpire, who ruled she touched the granite after releasing the handle. The draw didn’t touch any other stones and it was removed when it came to rest. Clearly frustrated after losing in an extra end, Homan was asked by reporters if she felt she was being unfairly treated. “100 per cent,” Homan...

A new manifestation of 'go woke, go broke,' this time hitting the Olympic medal count.One by one, America’s made-for-TV stars fell short of expectations. Lindsey Vonn crashed. Chloe Kim fell. Mikaela Shiffrin struggled. The most shocking fumble of all came on Friday night when figure skater Ilia Malinin, the self-proclaimed “quad god,” melted down in the brutal heat of the Olympic spotlight.It was merely the latest disappointment of an Olympics souring faster than burrata in the sun for Team USA, which is suddenly on track for its fewest winter golds since 1998.What a coincidence -- not liking your country goes...

During Team USA's comeback men's hockey win over Denmark at the Winter Olympics, two fans raised the flag of Greenland in the stands to protest President Donald Trump's intent to acquire Greenland for the U.S. The flag was raised enthusiastically after Denmark took an early lead. However, the U.S. came back to win the game 6-3. Vita Kalniņa and her husband Alexander Kalniņš, fans of the Latvian hockey team who live in Germany, held up a large Greenland flag during warmups and again when the Danish team scored the opening goal of the preliminary round game against the U.S., which...

American-born Olympian Eileen Gu scored millions from China in 2025 – a staggering payout exposed in a public budget before officials quickly scrubbed her name from the record, according to a report. The champion freestyle skier, who competes for China, cashed in on a jaw-dropping $6.6 million from the Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau last year – a hefty sum that was shared with fellow US-born Olympian figure skater Zhu Yi, according to the country’s budget, the Wall Street Journal reported. Yi – who renounced her US citizenship – also performs under China’s flag.

Former ESPN personality Sarah Spain grumbled on her podcast recently that sitting near “demon” Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Winter Olympics in Italy made her feel “ill.” The “Good Game with Sarah Spain” host described her proximity to the top Trump administration officials – about 20 feet away, according to Spain – as one of the “low lights” of covering the US women’s hockey team as they demolished Czechia at the Milano Cortina games last week. “Twelve minutes into the first period, that area suddenly is awash with large men in suits with...

Free condoms for competitors at the Winter Olympics have run out within a record-breaking three days, according to La Stampa. “The supplies ran out in just three days,” an anonymous athlete told the Italian newspaper. “They promised us more will arrive, but who knows when.” It blamed the Olympic organisers, saying they had not been “particularly generous with the numbers”. “In Paris the athletes received 300,000 condoms — two per day each— but the numbers for these Winter Games were significantly lower: not even 10,000,” La Stampa’s report states. Just under 3,000 athletes are competing at the Winter Olympics, compared...

The figure skating world is screaming sacré bleu over the scoring by French judge Jézabel Dabois that cost American pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates gold in the ice dance competition and handed the controversial French duo Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron the top prize. Dabois’ scoring has come under intense scrutiny in the 24 hours since Beaudry and Cizeron edged out Chock and Bates with a total score of 225.82, a mere 1.43 points better than the U.S. duo to win the gold. The French judge’s scores drastically differed from those of her fellow judges and herself when...

That controversy was ugly enough without a scoring debacle, but we absolutely got one courtesy of a single French judge in the finals. Jézabel Dabois, the judge in question, not only noticeably scored Chock/Bates lower than the rest of the panel, but more critically she vastly overscored F. Beaudry/Cizeron — and has been doing so for over a year.

Casey Wasserman's job as chair of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee is safe after the LA28 board's executive committee met Wednesday to discuss his appearance in recently released government files on Jeffrey Epstein. Wasserman has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein, but documents released by the Justice Department revealed that in 2003 he exchanged flirtatious emails with Ghislaine Maxwell, who years later would be accused of helping Epstein recruit and sexually abuse his victims. IOC won't pressure L.A. Games chair Wasserman LA28 said that, with help from an outside legal firm, it conducted a...

Two-time national curling champion Rich Ruohonen said he's proud to represent the United States at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, even though "it's been tough" in his home state of Minnesota. "I'm a lawyer there. I've been for 28 years, and a lot of tragedy, a lot of difficulties. And, you know, we want to focus on the Games, but at the same time, what's going on there is wrong," Ruohonen told CBS News when asked how it is being at the Olympics and thinking about the news that has been coming out of his home state.

Olympic patriotism for Team USA just isn’t the same anymore.We had a schtick here at SB Nation circa 2014 with the Sochi Winter Olympics, or more aptly, a social media strategy that led us to posting endless, tongue-in-cheek, jingoistic patriotism during the games. There were the traditional medal counts and tracking the achievements of U.S. athletes that were earnest, but also intentionally cringy images of Ronald Regan riding a velociraptor, a muscled George Washington covered in bandoleers, and Abe Lincoln smoking cigars. It’s horrifically clichéd now, but it wasn’t back then. The intention was to juxtapose the honest, legitimate pride...

Norwegian biathlete breaks down after winning bronze medal and confesses to cheating on his girlfriend, saying it is “the biggest mistake of my life”.The joy of winning a bronze medal at the Winter Olympics in Antholz on Tuesday (Feb 10) turned to tears for biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid as he broke down live on air and confessed he had had an affair. Asked by Norwegian channel NRK to share his feelings after his bronze in the 20km individual, a teary Laegreid admitted he had made "the biggest mistake of my life". "There is someone who, perhaps, isn't in front of...

MILAN (AP) — Ilia Malinin, the U.S. figure skater nicknamed the “Quad God,” became the first person to legally land a backflip on one skate in the Olympics — although one trailblazing woman pulled it off when the move was still forbidden. The 21-year-old from Virginia delivered a crucial free skate on Sunday night for the winning American team, filled with his trademark quadruple jumps, and punctuated the gold medal-clinching performance with his dramatic backflip. It’s a move known today as “the Bonaly flip” — named for France’s Surya Bonaly. Nevertheless, it is Malinin getting showered with praise, prompting many...

Jamaica's iconic bobsleigh team — which inspired the hit film Cool Runnings — will make its tenth Winter Olympics appearance at Milano Cortina 2026. Nearly four decades on from Jamaica's debut at the 1988 Calgary Olympics that inspired the cult film Cool Runnings, the Caribbean country's bobsledders are now preparing for their tenth Winter Games in Italy. At the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, Jamaica will compete in both the women's and men's bobsleigh events between 15 and 22 February. In the women’s monobob, the green, black, and yellow flag will be worn by Mica Moore — a former Great...

A U.S. Olympic curler has become the latest in a trend of American athletes to use the Winter Olympics as a platform to blast President Trump’s policies at home.Rich Ruohonen, 54, a member of the U.S. Olympic curling team and a native of Minnesota, used a considerable chunk of his time in front of reporters on Tuesday to speak out against the efforts of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in his home state to rid the streets of criminal illegals.“I’d like to say I’m proud to be here to represent Team USA, and to represent our country. But we’d...