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The 2026 Winter Olympics are almost upon us. Running from 6 February until 22 February, the Milano Cortina games will take place in the picturesque region of Lombardy in Northeast Italy. And we are so ready to get extremely into some winter sports that many of us only really understand for two weeks every two years. Bobsleigh, curling, luge, alpine skiing, figure skating? What's not to love.
This year marks the most gender-balanced Winter Olympic games ever, with 47% female representation, up from the 45.4% that competed at Beijing 2022. There will also be a record number of 50 women's events at these games. High time if you ask us.
A total of 1,338 women are heading to northern Italy later this week, so there will be plenty of female athletes to get behind from the comfort of your sofa. We've picked out a few that we should all be looking out for.
Light a candle, grab a book, snuggle up with a blanket, and get a little mindful.
Zoe Atkin
British-American freestyle skier Zoe Atkin is returning for her second Olympic Games following her debut at Beijing 2022. The 23-year-old, who competes for Team GB, placed ninth in the Women's Freeski Halfpipe two years ago and is looking to get her hands on her first Olympic medal this year. Her older sister, Izzy Atkin, won bronze in women's slopestyle at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, becoming the first British Olympic medalist in skiing.
Zoe comes into Milano Cortine 2026 as a firm favourite. Last year, she took home gold at the 2025 World Championships for the ski halfpipe – two years early, she placed second and two years before that, she placed third. She also placed first in the Copper Mountain World Cup ski halfpipe this year, while also taking home two silver World Cup medals in Secret Garden and Aspen.
Just one week ago, she nabbed yet another gold at the X Games. “My first @xgames gold was such a pivotal moment in my career, giving me the confidence to put it all out there and push myself to be one of the best,” she wrote on Instagram following the win.
To top it all off, Zoe has also been a full-time student at Stanford since 2022.
Mia Brookes
British snowboarder Mia Brookes will be making her Olympic debut at Milano Cortina 2026. But while it may be the 19-year-old's first Olympic games, she is already a favourite to take home a medal for Team GB. The snowboarder placed first in her first World Championships in 2023. Although she came sixth at the same event last year, the last year has still been a big one for Brookes. She took home two gold and one silver World Cup medals, as well as a bronze medal at the 2025 X Games and a gold at the same event this year.
Hailing rom Cheshire, Brooks has been snowboarding since she was just 18 months old. By the time she was in high school, Brooks was competing in snowboarding events across Europe. She made her international debut in 2020, taking home a silver medal in a Europa Cup event in Switzerland. The only reason she didn't compete in Beijing 2022 was that she was just under the permitted age.
Lilah Fear
Another Team GB hopeful, Lilah Fear will be competing alongside her longtime figure skating partner Lewis Gibson at Milano Cortina 2026. The pair have already proven themselves on the international stage, taking home Britain's first global ice skating medal in over four decades with the 2025 World Championship bronze. Fear and Gibson also placed third in both the European Championships and the Grand Prix final in 2024 and 2025. Fear previously competed in the Beijing 2022 Olympics, placing 10th.
“In one week, we will be landing in Milan for the Olympics,” Fear wrote on Instagram ahead of Milano Cortina 2026. “I’m savouring every step along the way. Every rep, every emotion, every early morning, every flicker of nerves, every wave of giddy excitement and every time my heart blooms with gratitude and awe. This is the process. This is what it’s all about.”
Federica Brignone
Italian alpine ski racer Federica Brignone is a local to Milan and will be one of the Italian favourites this year. Brignone took home bronze in giant slalom in 2018, and, in 2022, silver in the same event, along with bronze in combined.
The three-time Olympic medal winner almost didn't make it to this year's Olympics in her home city. The athlete took a serious fall during the Italian ski championships last April, resulting in multiple fractures of the calf and tibial plateau, along with a torn ligament.
“It [sic] has been painful, a big battle and it's still a long way to be an athlete again, but I'm working really hard to come back!” she shared in August. And she has managed to recover just in time for the Olympics. Just a few weeks ago, she placed sixth at the FIS Ski World Cup, her first competition since her injury.
Eileen Gu
Eileen Gu was born in the United States and competes for China as a freestyle skier in halfpipe, slopestyle and big air. She began her career at the 2018-2019 Freestyle Ski World Cup, competing for the United States, before switching to China in 2019. As she explained in an Instagram post at the time, she hoped "to unite people, promote common understanding, create communication, and forge friendships between nations."
At the 2022 Winter Olympics, Gu became the youngest-ever gold medalist in freestyle skiing after winning the big air freestyle event. She also took home another gold in freeski halfpipe and a silver in slopestyle. More recently, she took gold in SuperPipe at the 2024 X Games in spite of a hip injury.
“Coming into my second Olympics as the same person in many ways, and also changed in some others,” she wrote ahead of Milano Cortina 2026. “At my core, the mission remains the same - to introduce freeskiing to more young people (especially girls), to push women’s skiing and represent it honorably on the world stage, and to enjoy this once in a lifetime experience (every Olympics is a once in a lifetime experience).”
In 2022, Gu was named on of the world's 100 most influential people by Time.
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Elana Meyers Taylor
American bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor has been competing since 2007 and made her Olympic debut in 2010. That year, she won bronze alongside Erin Pac. At the 2014 Winter Olympics, she and Lauryn Williams took home silver. She once again nabbed a silver at the 2018 Games, this time, with Lauren Gibbs. After so much success, Meyers Taylor was selected as a flag bearer for the 2022 Olympic Games, however, after testing psitive for COVID-19, she had to skip the ceremony.
Over the years, Meyers Taylor has been a proud advocate for female athletes. In 2014, she became the first woman to win a medal in a men's event, participating in a mixed-gender four person race alongside her husband Nic Taylor. In 2020, she also called out racism in her sport, claiming a coach from another country made “several racist statements.”
“The biggest thing is to really look at the sport of bobsled, and all sports, and try and analyze where is racism and where it can be improved to prevent people with racist ideas and racial biases from having as much power as they do,” she said at the time. “Racism occurs to all different types of people. Sport isn’t immune.”
Mikaela Shiffrin
American alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin is certainly one to watch. The two-time Olympic gold medalist also holds the title of Most World Cup wins of any alpine skier in history. As you can imagine, her other stats are equally impressive. She is a five-time World Cup champion, a four-time slalom champion and was the youngest slalom gold medalist ever at the Olympics. At 30-years-old, Shiffrin is currently the number one overall alpine skier in the world.
In spite of her many, many accolades, Shiffrin comes to the 2026 Winter Olympics after a disappointing performance in 2022 where she failed to finish three events and won no medals.
“There’s this kind of pressure that comes with wanting with all of your soul to perform for your country, to represent your home, family, friends, and fans, and everyone who’s worked with you along the way, your whole team,” Shiffrin said to Powder Magazine.
However, this year, she's as determined as ever. “I feel as motivated as ever, but I also feel realistic about the position I’m in right now, not necessarily going into the season feeling like I’m one of the fastest athletes,” Shiffrin said. “I feel like I have the potential to be in the mix, when I ski my best most confident skiing, which happens sometimes, but not all the time."
Lindsey Vonn
American alpine skier Lindsey Vonn is one of only six women to have won World Cup races in all five disciplines of the sport. In 2010, she won gold in downhill and bronze in Super-G. She took home bronze in downhill in 2018. A versatile all-rounder, Vonn is heading to her fifth Olympic Games this year at the age of 41 – she makes her return this year after announcing her retirement in 2019 after multiple injuries. She missed the 2022 Games. But now, she's back.
“There’s nothing like ski racing, so I could pretend the other things I did were exciting,” she said of her hiatus. “They’re not ever going to be the same.”
And how has she changed since she last competed? “I’m a more mature woman now. I’m much more grounded and calm,” she said. “I know my purpose, and I have pretty thick skin."
