Whether you want sun or snow, football or tennis, home-soil heroes or intrepid contenders – there is something for every Australian on the 2026 sporting calendar. Guardian Australia’s sport team have selected the events they are most looking forward to in 2026, at home and abroad.
Piastri’s time to shine
Lando Norris may be the new Formula One world champion, but he will face a new source of adversity when he arrives in Melbourne in March: parochial Australians.
Many in Australia have seen red this year at the seemingly selective application of the papaya rules. There’s also a growing suspicion that McLaren might want to see a wealthy, marketable Briton succeed at the expense of the Melbourne-born upstart Oscar Piastri.
Those sentiments are the rubber to the road of Albert Park, where Norris, McLaren chief executive Zak Brown and team principal Andrea Stella will see first-hand the level of support for Piastri in the first race of 2026.
Jeers from the grandstand alone may be easy to ignore as the circuit swiftly moves on to China the following week. Yet in the first outing under substantially different technical regulations, a comprehensive Piastri victory would be nothing less than a coup at the king’s coronation.
No Australian has finished on the podium at their home race in more than four decades. After the experience of a promising – if difficult – 2025, Piastri can aim for the top step. Jack Snape
Australia eyes winter medal haul
The Winter Olympics return to their spiritual home of Europe for the first time in two decades with the 2026 Games co-hosted at Milano-Cortina. Australian athletes have since become podium regulars at the quadrennial event, even as opportunities to discover and dive into snow sports and culture continue to melt away in their homeland. Medal hopefuls this time will be found in snowboard (Scotty James, Valentino Guseli, Tess Coady), moguls (Matt Graham, defending Olympic champion Jakara Anthony) and bobsleigh (Bree Walker).
Australia could even have multiple contenders – Laura Peel, Danielle Scott and Abbey Willcox – soaring and spinning for gold in the women’s aerials skiing. But amid the dreams of success on snow and ice, there will be frequent reminders of a warming planet and the glacial pace of climate action. Changes to the alpine environment since the Games were held in Italy 20 years ago, let alone when Cortina d’Ampezzo last hosted the Olympics in 1956, will be as apparent and shocking as organisers and broadcasters show them to be.
The Australia team has reason to hope for its best Winter Olympics yet in terms of medals, even as concerns grow that they could soon hit a peak with suggestions the local ski season will be slashed to just 70 days a year by 2050 without a radical reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Martin Pegan
Can the Socceroos make history?
For all the reservations about the expanded 48-team tournament, Fifa’s shameless exploitation of fans, exorbitant ticket and hotel prices, and Gianni Infantino’s toe-curling love-in with Donald Trump, there will be a point next year when some actual football breaks out.
For the Socceroos, at a sixth straight World Cup, that means an opportunity to once again capture the imagination of the nation. Football’s struggles for relevance in a crowded domestic market are well documented but there’s nothing like a World Cup to cut through every four years and show the true pulling power of the world game.
With more favourable kick-off times than at recent editions – 5am, midday and 2pm for their three group stage games – Socceroos fans, even those new to the bandwagon, should be able to get fully onboard without troubling the alarm clock too much.
Progress out of a group containing Paraguay, hosts USA and a yet to be confirmed team from Europe, is considered an achievable target for Tony Popovic’s side. But whether they have the quality and nous to go any further and match their previous best of a last-16 appearance, is open to debate. Regardless, it promises to be a World Cup to remember, for better or for worse. Mike Hytner
Australian Open returns
The world’s best tennis players will arrive in January for the Australian Open, which transforms Melbourne Park and banks of the Yarra into a festival of tennis. As a lifetime tennis fan and Melburnian, this event is deeply ingrained. The heat, the crowds, the late-night five setters. Nothing sums up Melbourne summer quite like watching two people hit a ball over a net until 2am on a Tuesday.
In the men’s draw, Australia’s hopes will rest on world No 7, Alex de Minaur, who is searching for his first grand slam trophy and would love to get it on home soil. He’ll have to get past Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the big two who have won the past eight slams between them. Novak Djokovic will be seeking to add to his 10 Australian Open crowns at age 38. And what about Nick Kyrgios? He defeated Aryna Sabalenka in a Battle of the Sexes match after a long recovery from injury and his hopes of returning to Rod Laver Arena are building.
Maya Joint, who made her Australian Open singles debut as a wildcard in 2025, has surged up the rankings since then to become the country’s top player in the women’s competition. The 19-year-old will be seeded at a grand slam for the first time, should she hold on to her ranking of 32. The world No 1 Sabalenka will be hard to stop but Iga Świątek and defending champion Madison Keys will believe they can. Rick Goodman
Matildas magic on the menu
It feels like an age since the Matildas sent shivers of nervous energy rippling around Australia during the Women’s World Cup in 2023. Amplified by even the most unexpected of football fans, the excitement of those weeks is unlikely to be matched any time soon. But in March, there is an opportunity to reignite the spark.
Hosting the Women’s Asian Cup is a chance for the Matildas to cement their place as the team that can whip all corners of this nation into a frenzy like no other. For them to show they have what it takes in the continental showpiece after two-and-a-half years of mostly average, sometimes poor football due in part to coaching instability, injuries and management upheaval.
While the 2023 tournament was underscored by an obsession with the state of Sam Kerr’s calf – and thus her absence until the quarter-final – the intervening years have similarly been dented by a Kerr-shaped hole. But now that the captain has returned to the ranks and new coach, Joe Montemurro, has a few camps ticked off, the lustre is starting to come back.
However, the prolonged period of interim coaching means the Matildas have not had the preparation for the Asian Cup they would have liked. They should make it out of their group with Iran, the Philippines and South Korea, but the big question is: can they get back into shape in time to win it? Jo Khan
