The 2026 Winter Olympics have ended

The Winter Olympics started on Feb. 6, and the opening ceremony was held at San Siro Stadium in Milan, Italy. The snow sports this year included: Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing, Freestyle Skiing, Nordic combined, Ski Jumping, Ski Mountaineering, and Snowboarding. The Ice sports include: Curling, Figure Skating, Ice Hockey, Short Track Speed Skating, and Speed Skating. The last category of sports is sliding sports, and these include: Bobsled, Luge, and Skeleton. 

The most viewed and most popular sport in the 2026 Winter Olympics was figure skating. Figure skating has been around for over 100 years, and the minimum age of figure skaters to compete is 17 years old. The types of figure skating held this year include: team events, ice dance, men’s singles, pairs, women’s singles, and exhibition gala. 

Mikhail Shaidorov won gold for men’s singles after a nearly perfect performance, becoming the first figure skater from Kazakhstan to win at the Olympics. Yuma Kagiyama from Japan won silver for men’s singles, and Shun Sato, also from Japan, won bronze. 

Alysa Liu won the Olympic gold for women’s singles, becoming the first American woman to win Olympic gold in over 24 years. Kaori Sakamoto and Ami Nakai followed close behind, coming in second and third. During the pairs match, Miura and Kihara set a world record for the first pair ever to earn gold for Japan. Metelkina and Berulava from Germany won silver, and Hase and Volodin, also from Germany, won Bronze.

During the Ice dance, Fournier Beaudry and Cizeron from France won gold, and Chock and Bates from the U.S. won silver. Giles and Poirier won bronze representing Canada. During the team event, the U.S. won for the second time because of an amazing performance by Ilia Malinin and Liu.

The second most viewed sport in the 2026 Winter Olympics was Snowboarding. During the men’s halfpipe, Yuto Totsuka from Japan won Olympic gold, with Scotty James from Australia and Ryusei Yamada from Japan coming in second and third. Choi Ga-on from Korea won Olympic gold during the women’s halfpipe, becoming the youngest snowboarding Olympic champion ever. Chloe Kim Choi Ga-on’s mentor from the U.S. won silver, competing with a torn labrum, and Mitsuki Ono from Japan won bronze. 

Japan received its ninth snowboarding medal, which was led by Kokomo Murase and Yuta Totsuka. Su Yiming, a Chinese snowboarder, won gold on his 22nd birthday. Benjamin Karl from Austria became the oldest snowboarding medalist in history at age 40. For the first time since 1998, the USA did not win any gold medals in the snowboarding category. Overall, Japan did the best in snowboarding, winning four out of six categories.

The Winter Olympics concluded on Feb. 22. Norway won the most gold medals and overall medals with 18 gold and a total of 41 medals. The U.S. won second with 12 gold and 33 medals total. Italy placed third with an overall of 30 medals, and 12 of them were gold.