Olympics 2026: Meet the Team USA Athletes Going for Winter Gold

Mikaela Shiffrin, Alpine Skiing

Shiffrin may be a three-time Olympic medalist, but the 30-year-old skier is looking for redemption heading into her fourth Olympics after her disappointing results at the 2022 Beijing Games and a scary crash in November 2024, in which she suffered a puncture to her abdomen that required surgery to repair.

“I feel very aware of all the things that could happen that I can't expect,” Shiffrin told TIME in December. “I know very well that we could do everything right on paper and it might not end up with a medal. But I feel really connected with my coaches, with the staff, with everyone around me, and that's building in a way that, whatever comes up, we'll be able to handle it together. That's the best I can do.”

Shiffrin's support team has long included Norwegian skier Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, but now she's engaged to her fellow Alpine specialist.

"He's positive, he's telling me, 'Just remember, it's going to be OK,'" she told Olympics.com. "And especially last season, there were some moments where I really questioned why I was trying to return and if that was too much, too soon, if it's not possible. And he was like, ‘Hey, you know yourself better. You're trying your hardest. If it doesn't work, that's also OK.’" 

Lindsey Vonn, Alpine Skiing

Plagued by knee injuries, Vonn retired from competition in 2019 after competing in five Winter Olympics, winning gold in downhill and bronze in Super-G in 2010 and adding another bronze in downhill in 2018.

But after undergoing a life-changing partial right knee-replacement in 2024 that left her free from pain for the first time since her first knee surgery in 2013, she felt that familiar need for speed.

"Board calls are nice, but they’re not really the same as downhill," the 41-year-old told NBC News in December. "And investing is great, but it’s also not the same. I built a great life outside of skiing, but there will never be anything like skiing, and I fully understand that, and I’m comfortable with that. But I’m definitely going to enjoy this last bit of adrenaline, because I won’t get it back.”

When Vonn crashed during a Jan. 30 World Cup race in Switzerland and had to be airlifted off the mountain, that could have spelled curtains for her comeback.

But the veteran athlete, who previously said she was "willing to risk everything," declared herself fit enough to compete in the women's downhill Feb. 8 in Cortina d'Ampezzo (which is hosting skiing, snowboarding and sliding sports, while skating, curling, etc. will take place in Milan), despite suffering a ruptured left ACL.

"I am not letting this slip through my fingers," she said at a Feb. 3 press conference. "I’m not crying. My head is high, I’m standing tall and I’m going to do my best."

Jessie Diggins, Cross-Country Skiing

The most decorated cross-country skier in U.S. history, Diggins is competing in her fourth and final Olympics.

And the Afton, Minn., native is headed to Italy with a purpose.

“I get to decide who I’m racing for every single day, and how I want to live up to my values," the 34-year-old wrote on Instagram Jan. 31. "For everyone out there caring for others, protecting their neighbors, and meeting people with love—every single step is for you. YOU are the ones who make me proud to carry the flag, and I hope I can bring you joy over these next few weeks.”

However, once she retires, she told NPR's All Things Considered, "I'm just excited to honestly do a lot of gardening and most of all be home with my husband and have that time together."

Jordan Stulz, Speed Skating

Stolz made his Olympics debut at 17 in Beijing and, while he finished far from the podium four years ago, he's a favorite to dominate in the 500, 1,000, and 1,500-meter events, as well as in the mass start (a 16-lap, 6,400-meter race), at the Milan Cortina Games.

“If I can have perfect races, I think I have the best chances out of a lot of people to win gold," the 21-year-old told the Associated Press in January. Asked how he handled the weight of expectations, he replied, "As long as nothing gets in the way, then I should be fine. I’ve had a lot of high-pressure races, I guess you could say, so I don’t think that’s that big of an issue.”

Erin Jackson, Speed Skating

As the first Black American woman to win a medal in speed skating—and the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics—four years ago in Beijing, 500-meter champion Jackson is returning to the 2026 Games as a flag bearer in the Feb. 6 Opening Ceremony, sharing the honor with bobsledder Frank Del Duca.

"Being chosen to represent the United States on the world stage is a tremendous honor," the 33-year-old from Ocala, Fla., said in a statement. "It's a moment that reflects far more than one individual—it represents my family, my teammates, my hometown, and everyone across the country who believes in the power of sport."

And while she isn't calling it a career just yet, Jackson's post-retirement plans include starting her own organization to help young Black athletes pursue their speed skating dreams.

“I think representation is super important because it helps to see someone like you achieving something, and we haven’t typically had that in winter sports, and speed skating, specifically," she told NBC Olympics. "I really take on the responsibility with pride of being a face that others can look to and maybe get out and try the sports. I want to do whatever I can to make the magic happen for others.”

Chloe Kim, Snowboarding

A little torn labrum, suffered in January when she dislocated her shoulder while training in Switzerland, wasn't going to stop Kim from competing in her fourth Olympics, where she has the chance to win her third gold medal in women's halfpipe.

"Obviously, I'm really disappointed that I can’t snowboard until right before the Olympics, which is going to be hard," the 25-year-old from Torrance, Calif., said in a Jan. 13 video. “I haven't gotten nearly the amount of reps I would've liked, but that's OK."

She predicted a "pretty chill" lead-up to the 2026 Games, telling NBC Olympics Jan 22, "I'm home right now, and I'll be heading out to Europe early next week to get a few days of training in before we head over to Milan, and then I'll be there for the big day."

And once she was there, she'd be fired up and ready to go—just like everyone else.

"I think the experience as a whole, it's really hard to describe," Kim, who's been snowboarding since she was 4, said, "but I feel like we all kind of transform into peak versions of ourselves."

Red Gerard, Snowboarding

Gerard was 17 when he won his sole gold in slopestyle at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, but he's the two-time defending X Games champ and is hoping to bring those winning vibes to his third Olympics.  

“I still feel young and I still feel really, really healthy,” the 25-year-old, who's originally from Ohio and is now based in Colorado, told People in January. “But it has been really cool being on Team USA since I was 13 or whatever…and [now] being one of the older athletes, being able to offer some wisdom to the younger athletes.” 

As for competing on the world's biggest stage, Gerard said, “I just try to tell myself when the Olympics are coming around, it's the same as all the other competitions. I mean, yeah, it's different. It's on a bigger scale, and a lot more people watching and all that. But when it actually comes down to the snowboarding, it's the same exact thing. So, if you can kind of put your blinders on and just worry about what you got to do and treat it the same as you have your whole life, that's what I always try to do.”

Alex Ferreira, Freestyle Skiing

The 31-year-old halfpipe specialist is competing in his third Olympics and is looking to round out his 2018 silver and 2022 bronze with his first gold medal.

"I think this is the year I can win gold because, one, I'm coming into the games healthy for the first time," Ferreira, who was born in Aspen, Colo., and learned to ski at the local club using secondhand equipment, told the Daily Express. "And both of those times prior, I was going into the games injured. The first one, I had broken my collarbone a few weeks before, and then the second one, I had sprained my ankle. Like, three weeks before, so this time I'm healthy, this time I'm a little bit older, I'm much more focused, laser-focused."

And in addition to his sister Lourdes and athlete parents Marcelo, a former professional soccer player from Argentina, and Colleen, who was a competitive relay racer, he's got rescue dog Brandy shoring up his corner.

"The thing I love most about Brandy is that she's not counting medals," Ferreira, an ambassador for Nulo pet food, said in an interview for the brand. "She's just wagging her tail when I get home, so she's there for me—the good, the bad, the ugly, everything—and I absolutely need her."

Alex Hall, Freestyle Skiing

Hall is headed to his third Olympics as the reigning gold medalist in slopestyle—rocketing to new heights four years after finishing 16th in the event in the 2018 Games.

In addition to a possible repeat in slopestyle, the mellow 27-year-old—"I got to do it once," he told The Athletic of winning gold, which he keeps in his sock drawer. "If I get to do it again, that’d be amazing”—is also looking to improve on an eighth-place 2022 finish in Big Air.

 “Having the Olympics back in Europe will be exciting, skiing on good snow hopefully, and around big mountains, which we haven’t had these past two Olympics," Hall—who lives in Utah but was born in Alaska and grew up in Zurich, where his parents are college professors—told POWDER magazine in October 2025. “For me personally, it’s also pretty cool because my mom is Italian. She’s from Bologna and her whole side of the family still lives right in the city. A bunch of them are coming up for the Olympics, so that will be pretty sweet.”

Jaelin Kauf, Freestyle Skiing

Competing in her third Olympics, the 29-year-old moguls expert intends to improve on her silver showing in Beijing.

And she knows where to turn for advice about everything from training to how to handle the pressure of international competition.

Mom Patti Sherman-Kauf won two titles on the World Pro Moguls Tour—and competed while pregnant with her daughter—while dad Scott Kauf won five. And after her mogul days were over, Patti switched to skicross and earned three X Games bronze medals.

When Jaelin was born, "she didn't like to be rocked, like most babies," Patti told NBC Olympics. "She liked to be bounced."

Still, Jaelin "wasn't always sold on mogul skiing itself," she admitted to Teton Gravity Research in November 2025. "I’d take a powder day over bumps any time. But I think that seeing and knowing how my parents made a life as professional skiers made me realize it was a possibility. Not everyone grows up seeing that as a real career path, or is supported in that path, but I always knew that I would be."

Also on Team Jaelin is her two-time Olympian boyfriend, retired moguls skier Bradley Wilson, and his bronze medal-winning older brother Bryon Wilson, who happens to be Kauf's coach. 

Kaillie Humphries, Bobsled

Humphries' journey has had more twists than a bobsled run.

Born in Calgary, the 40-year-old won gold at the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics, and then a bronze in 2018, competing in two-woman bobsled for Team Canada.

She then shocked the sporting world when she announced in 2019 that she was leaving the Canadian national team after 16 years, alleging she feared for her safety amid what had become a toxic environment ahead of the 2018 Olympics.

Humphries joined the U.S. team in 2019, but told the AP at the time that she was Canadian and "not giving up one for the other."

"My feelings for Canada don't lessen, but I can love something else just as much," she explained. "And I've been living in the U.S. for four years. I love an American. I married one. Then different opportunities arose and we find ourselves in situations in life where we have to make decisions and choices."

Humphries became an American citizen in 2021—then won gold in the inaugural monobob (i.e. one-person) at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Her fifth Olympics will be her first as a mom, having welcomed son Aulden with husband Travis Armbruster in June 2024.

“We’ve always been told, ‘If you have a baby, your body will never be the same, you’re never gonna get back on the podium, you’re going to change physically and mentally, so when you have a kid, your sport career is done,'” Humphries told The Athletic in January. “And that was true for a long time. But we’re proving that now, if you want both, you can have both.”

Elana Meyers Taylor, Bobsled

Bobsledding has become "me time" for the now-five-time Olympian since she and husband Nic Taylor welcomed son Nico in 2020 and then son Noah in 2022. Nico has Down syndrome and both children are deaf, the latter due to a gene mutation that both parents have, which they didn't know until after Nico was born.

And despite life at home being busier than ever, Meyers Taylor was eager for her kids to see her at work.

“They’re gonna face challenges that I can’t even comprehend,” the 41-year-old told The Athletic. “I want them to see that, despite obstacles, you can keep pursuing your dream. I want them to see me with medals around my neck. But I also want them to see me get knocked down, get back up and fight.”

While she has five medals from her four previous Olympics, four from two-woman bobsled and the silver she got finishing second to Humphries in monobob in 2022, Meyers Taylor is still seeking her first gold.

Mystique Ro, Skeleton

There's a certain badassery built into a sport that entails hurtling headfirst on a tiny sled down a twisty track at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour.

But Ro, the first American to medal in skeleton in 12 years at the IBSF World Championships in 2025, admittedly didn't think it was for her at first.

“The coach walks me to the line, lets me go, and all of a sudden, it’s going so fast, you cannot see anything, you cannot process anything,” she told The Athletic in December, recalling her first taste of the sport in 2016 after being told she was too small for bobsledding. “I get to the bottom, and it’s like, ‘I’m done, bye! I’m not doing that s--t again!’”

But after listening to enough people rave about how cool it was, she tried it again.

A decade later, the Virginia native is in her first Olympics, ready to compete individually and in the mixed (co-ed) team event, which is making its debut at the 2026 Games.

When she's not training and traveling, Ro—who's the second-oldest of 11 siblings, including a twin sister who's 14 minutes younger—works as a tour guide at the Lake Placid Olympic Center, one of numerous athletes in lower-profile sports who supplements her bank account with a day job.

“I work there, I train there, I live and breathe that atmosphere all the time,” she explained. “And tourists love it because you have an athlete walking you around the facility, giving you their unique perspective. It’s really cool, but it’s not going to cover everything I need to do this sport.”

Ilia Malinin, Figure Skating

Born to parents who were both Uzbekistani figure skating champions, Malinin took up the sport when he was 6—though at the time he preferred playing soccer outside in his Virginia hometown rather than train in a cold arena.

When he was 17, he became the first and—to date—only skater to successfully land a fully rotated quadruple axel in international competition, at the 2022 CS U.S. International Classic.

Malinin, dubbed the "Quad God," has performed the feat multiple times since and is the U.S. men's best shot at repeating in individual gold in 2026, since "Quad King" Nathan Chen opted not to compete in the Milan Cortina Games.

However, four years after he was passed over for a spot on Team USA, the 20-year-old is focused on giving himself the best shot at a strong showing.

"When I go to competitions, I don't think about the medals," Malinin said on USA Today's Milan Magic video podcast. "I always think about the performance and think about what I have to do, what my job is as a skater. A lot of the times, I prepare myself very well so that I can go on the ice and deliver to the best of my ability. And of course, if you have a clean skate, I'm assumed that the medals can come with you, as well."

Alysa Liu, Figure Skating

Liu hung up her skates in 2022 after the Beijing Olympics and World Championships, where she won bronze.

“I started when I was 5 and I basically didn't stop until 16, and I was homeschooled my whole life,” Liu told NBC News in January, reflecting on her decision to retire at 17. “And I'm a very social person. I crave human connection. And I was living by myself for many years, no family, no friends around, all for the sake of training."

Moreover, she continued, "I didn't even pick my own programs, like people put me in dresses that I didn't want to wear, I was literally just like a dress-up doll and I didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had to do my duty of going to the Olympics for my younger self.”

She enrolled at UCLA in the fall of 2023 and enjoyed having a normal life. But a January skiing trip fired up her competitive side, and she declared herself back in the game in March 2024. The 20-year-old from Clovis, Calif., went on to win gold at the World Championships in 2025 and is hoping to end the U.S. women's 20-year individual medal drought—preferably with more gold—at the 2026 Games.

When she takes the ice now, "it's fully for myself," Liu explained. "Yeah, it's pretty cool."

Madison Chock & Evan Bates, Ice Dancing

The longtime partners are competing in their fourth Olympics, but first since getting married in June 2024.

“I think it just really solidified our commitment to each other and our commitment to our craft,” Chock told E! News in December. “We already had such a deep understanding and bond through skating, but since we've been married, I really feel like we just take everything on as partners and champion each other on and off the ice in whatever endeavor we're pursuing.”

While they shared a team gold medal with the rest of the U.S. figure skating team in Beijing in 2022, the three-time world champions are still seeking their first Olympic medal as a pair.

"We're working hard and been putting in the hours and putting in the work,” Bates told E!,” "but we're so grateful for each day and for the opportunity.”

And though the 36-year-old and Chock, 33, haven't said whether this will be their last Olympics or not, they know they're getting closer to their grand finale.

“We’ve tried to not get too emotional, just with the nostalgia of this event and the 15-year journey that we’ve been on,” Bates told NBC Olympics in January at the 2026 Prevagen U.S. Figure Skating Championships, where they went on to win gold. “The ultimate payback is to skate well, but we also want to just enjoy that moment, because it’s fleeting and it could very well be the last.”

Hilary Knight, Hockey

The U.S. women's national team veteran, who won gold in 2018, has confirmed that Milan Cortina will be her fifth and final Olympics—which will give the 36-year-old the record for most Olympic appearances by any American hockey player, man or woman.

And while Knight would love to skate off with another gold medal, she told Today.com, "Half our roster, maybe even more, has never been to the Olympics. That's a big deal, so making sure everyone is comfortable and able to play up to their true potential. We have some amazing players, and if we're going to get them to play all the way up to full scale like that, that's going to be elite for our performance."

The University of Wisconsin alum has played all over, and her current home ice is in Washington, where she's the Seattle Torrent's star forward. But home-home is in Salt Lake City, where she bought a house with partner Brittany Bowe, who is the oldest member of the U.S. speed skating team and will be competing in her fourth and final Olympics just weeks before her 38th birthday Feb. 24.

"As top-tier athletes, you really know what that person may need, whether it's support or space," Knight told NBC Olympics in June 2025. "And I think both of us being at a high level for a pretty long time helps us understand one another."

Cory Thiesse & Korey Dropkin, Curling

The mixed doubles partners, who joined forces shortly after the 2022 Beijing Games, will be competing in their first Olympics together after finishing in fifth place at the 2025 World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship. In addition to their skill and hard work, they've credited their complementary personalities for their success, which includes a 2023 world championship.

"We just work so well together. We know how to stay loose and stay in the present moment," Dropkin, 30, told reporters ahead of the Milan Cortina Games. "We fit so well together personality-wise. There's someone that's termed us recently as 'the calm and the fire'. Cory's got that calm, confident, stoic personality on the ice. I bring that fiery, passionate energy. The two mix really well together."

He and Thiesse—who's been married to Sam Thiesse since June 2022—are based in Duluth, Minn., where they both have day jobs to finance their curling dreams.

Dropkin is a realtor, while Thiesse works as a lab tech for a company that tests mercury levels in wastewater. “I feel grateful that I have a job that pays the bills while I go compete in curling," she told Duluth's ABC 10. "This is what we’ve been dreaming of since we were little kids."