When do the 2026 Winter Olympics start?

The 2026 Winter Olympics officially open in the early hours of Friday, 7 February Australian time with the opening ceremony at Milan’s famous San Siro stadium. The Games run for two weeks, culminating in the closing ceremony on 23 February in Verona at the same time of 6am AEDT.

Several sports with packed schedules, including curling and ice hockey, begin a couple of days before the opening ceremony. Australia’s mixed curling team just missed out on qualifying, despite being ranked No 1 in December last year, while Australia won’t be represented in ice hockey in Italy. The ice hockey will be the final event of the Games with the men’s gold-medal game at 12.10am AEDT on 23 February.

Where are the 2026 Winter Olympics?

The 2026 Games will take place in multiple territories across northern Italy: Anterselva, Bormio, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Livigno, Milano, Predazzo, Tesero and Verona. The athletes are spread across six villages depending on which of the 15 venues they are competing at. It is the third time Italy has been host, after Turin 2006 and Cortina d’Ampezzo 1956.

Where can I watch the Winter Olympics in Australia?

The Guardian will be live blogging for 12 hours every day of the Games. In Australia you can watch on the Nine Network and Nine Now or stream it on Stan Sport. Northern Italy is 10 hours behind AEDT, meaning each day’s schedule starts at about 9am local time (7pm AEDT).

You can sign up for our Winter Olympics 2026 daily briefing newsletter, which will run daily throughout the Winter Olympics and Paralympics, offering a guide to the day’s highlights and the best that is yet to come.

What is new in 2026?

The new kid on the block is ski mountaineering, or skimo, which involves uphill skiing on skins, hiking with skis on the athlete’s back and downhill skiing. Ski mountaineering will have three medal events: men’s sprint, women’s sprint and mixed relay.

However, there are several new events within the 15 existing sports, including in luge, ski jumping, skeleton, freestyle skiing and alpine skiing. About 3,000 athletes from 92 countries and the Independent Olympic Athletes will be competing for 116 medals over the two weeks. While ski mountaineering will hope to expand in 2030, cross-country running and cyclocross could be new additions in the French Alps.

Who is going to top the medal table?

Norway has taken the top spot on the medal table at the last two Winter Olympics, collecting 16 gold, eight silver and 13 bronze medals in 2022, ahead of Germany and the US. Beijing 2022 was dominated by Europe and North America, with China the highest-ranked Asian country at No 4.

How will Australia fare?

Australia is sending its second-largest team of 53 athletes to these Games and recent performances on the World Cup circuit suggest a record medal haul could be on the cards. Four years ago, Australia finished 18th on the table – just behind New Zealand and just ahead of Great Britain – coming home with one gold, two silver and one bronze.

Only one of Australia’s four 2022 medallists is not in the team. Mogul skier Jakara Anthony and snowboarders Scotty James and Tess Coady will be hoping to back up their performances from Beijing (skeleton silver medallists Jaclyn Narracott is missing), while other athletes to watch in Milano Cortina include teenager Indra Brown in freeski halfpipe and Valentino Guseli in snowboard halfpipe.

Are there any heated rivalries?

If you’re talking TV’s Heated Rivalry, the stars of the ice hockey romance show – Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie – have already made their mark by carrying the flame in the Olympic torch relay at the end of January.

But in lowercase heated rivalries, the big news in the ice hockey world is that NHL stars are back at the Olympics after a 12-year hiatus due to contract issues and Covid. And as far as sporting competition goes, the USA playing Denmark on Valentine’s Day while the leader of one continues to attempt to seize the territory of the other is certainly up there.

As for Australians, James and Guseli in the snowboard halfpipe are the matchup to watch – although it is not expected to be quite as diplomatically fraught as the ice hockey.