Summon the heroes! The 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics are almost here, and athletes from around the world are heading to northern Italy in hopes of skating, skiing, snowboarding, and sledding their way to the medal podium.
And this year’s games are different from previous editions of the Winter Olympics, with a unique dual-city setting, new events, and even a new sport, and more TV coverage here in the United States than ever.
Here are those details and more.
The shared setting
For the first time in Olympic history, two cities are hosting the games: Milan, Italy’s second-largest city, and Cortina d’Ampezzo, an Italian ski resort more than 250 miles away. And the action will play out at more than a dozen venues in those cities and elsewhere in northern Italy.
As NBC News reports, Milan will host ice skating, speed skating, ice hockey, and the opening ceremony; Cortina will host Alpine skiing, bobsled, curling, and luge; the Anterselva/Antholz region will host biathlon and cross-country skiing; Livigno will host freestyle skiing and snowboarding; Bormio will host men’s Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering; Tesero will host cross-country skiing; Predazzo will host ski jumping; and Verona will host the closing ceremonies.
By the way, Cortina is an Olympics host for a second time, as it also provided the Olympics’ home in 1956, and Italy is hosting the games for a fourth time.
The new events
The 2026 games are introducing ski mountaineering as a new Olympic sport, according to an Olympics.com FAQ. With medals awarded for men’s and women’s sprints and a mixed-gender relay, “skimo” has athletes alternating between racing on skis and racing on foot as they navigate a mountainous course.
Ski mountaineering is the only new sport at this year’s games, but viewers will see new events in returning Olympic sports: Women’s Doubles in luge, Women’s Large Hill in ski jumping, Mixed Team in skeleton, Men’s and Women’s Dual Moguls in freestyle skiing, and Team Combined in alpine skiing.
The medals
Both the 2026 Olympic Winter Games and the ensuing Paralympic Winter Games will award gold, silver, and bronze medals imagined by the Milano Cortina 2026 design team and crafted by the Italian State Mint and Polygraphic Institute (IPZS) using recycled metal recovered from production waste, per Olympics.com.
The medal design features interlocking halves representing several dual concepts, according to NBC Olympics. Those dual concepts include Milan and Cortina, urban and alpine, Olympic and Paralympic, and the athletes and the teams behind them.
Milano Cortina 2026 medals revealed!
The medals for the Olympic Winter Games @milanocortina26 have a unique design that combines two halves symbolising the athlete’s journey and all those who have walked beside them along the way.
Discover: https://t.co/EiFV2cgObf pic.twitter.com/wFAlxAJ4YS
— IOC MEDIA (@iocmedia) July 15, 2025
The delegations
Eighty-six delegations will represent their home countries at the 2026 Winter Olympics, and because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian athletes who meet International Olympic Committee specifications will compete as Individual Neutral Athletes, according to Sports Illustrated. Making their Winter Olympics debut at the 2026 games are Benin, Guinea-Bissau, and the United Arab Emirates, the magazine adds.
The emblem and motto
This year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games boast an emblem dubbed “Futura,” representing the number “26” drawn in a single motion. “Influenced by the themes of sport, solidarity and sustainability, ‘Futura’ illustrates a dynamic and modern design that reflects some of the fundamental values of the Olympic and the Paralympic Winter Games,” IOC Milano Cortina 2026 Coordination Commission Chair Sari Essayah said in a statement, per Olympics.com.
The Milano Cortina 2026 organizing committee’s choice of motto for the 2026 Olympics and Paralympics is “IT’s your vibe,” with “IT” capitalized as a play on Italy’s country code, according to the International Olympic Committee.
The mascots
The mascots of the 2026 Winter Olympics and Paralympics are the stoats Milo and Tina, named after the two host cities. Tina is the Olympic mascot, a white stoat who “believes in the power of beauty.” And Milo is the Paralympic mascot, a brown stoat who was born without one paw but “learned to use his tail and turn his difference into a strength,” Olympics.com explains. The two stoats will be joined by six snowdrop flowers symbolizing rebirth and collectively called The Flo.
The anthem
Nearly four years ago, the song “Fino all’alba” (“Until the Dawn”) won a song contest in Italy to become the official anthem for the 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, according to Inside the Games. The song, which received 72 percent of the vote, is the work of the La Cittadina of San Pietro Martire, a youth music group in the town of Seveso, Italy.
The coverage
In a press release, NBCUniversal touts that it will provide the biggest Winter Olympics ever with the media corporation’s most comprehensive Winter Games coverage, totaling more than 3,200 hours in all. NBC’s Primetime in Milan will offer three hours of coverage each night, and NBC is also extending coverage into daytime to provide more Olympics programming hours on the network than it did for any previous Winter Games. Peacock, meanwhile, will stream live coverage of every event in every sport. And USA Network and CNBC, two cable channels now owned by Versant following that company’s spinoff from NBCUniversal, will also carry coverage of the games.
2026 Winter Olympic Games, February 6 through February 22, NBC, Peacock, USA Network & CNBC
2026 Winter Paralympic Games, March 6 through March 15, NBC, Peacock, USA Network & CNBC
This story originally appeared on TV Insider
