The 2026 Winter Olympics are nearly upon us. Working from 6 February till 22 February, the Milano Cortina video games will happen within the picturesque area of Lombardy in Northeast Italy. And we’re so able to get extraordinarily into some winter sports activities that many people solely actually perceive for 2 weeks each two years. Bobsleigh, curling, luge, alpine snowboarding, determine skating? What’s to not love.
This yr marks probably the most gender-balanced Winter Olympic video games ever, with 47% feminine illustration, up from the 45.4% that competed at Beijing 2022. There may even be a document variety of 50 ladies’s occasions at these video games. Excessive time should you ask us.
A complete of 1,338 ladies are heading to northern Italy later this week, so there will probably be loads of feminine athletes to get behind from the consolation of your couch. We have picked out just a few that we must always all be looking for.
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Zoe Atkin
British-American freestyle skier Zoe Atkin is returning for her second Olympic Video games following her debut at Beijing 2022. The 23-year-old, who competes for Staff GB, positioned ninth within the Girls’s Freeski Halfpipe two years in the past and is seeking to get her palms on her first Olympic medal this yr. Her older sister, Izzy Atkin, received bronze in ladies’s slopestyle on the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, turning into the primary British Olympic medalist in snowboarding.
Zoe comes into Milano Cortine 2026 as a agency favorite. Final yr, she took house gold on the 2025 World Championships for the ski halfpipe – two years early, she positioned second and two years earlier than that, she positioned third. She additionally positioned first within the Copper Mountain World Cup ski halfpipe this yr, whereas additionally taking house two silver World Cup medals in Secret Backyard and Aspen.
Only one week in the past, she nabbed yet one more gold on the X Video games. “My first @xgames gold was such a pivotal second in my profession, giving me the arrogance to place all of it on the market and push myself to be top-of-the-line,” she wrote on Instagram following the win.
To prime all of it off, Zoe has additionally been a full-time pupil at Stanford since 2022.
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Mia Brookes
British snowboarder Mia Brookes will probably be making her Olympic debut at Milano Cortina 2026. However whereas it might be the 19-year-old’s first Olympic video games, she is already a favorite to take house a medal for Staff GB. The snowboarder positioned first in her first World Championships in 2023. Though she got here sixth on the identical occasion final yr, the final yr has nonetheless been a giant one for Brookes. She took house two gold and one silver World Cup medals, in addition to a bronze medal on the 2025 X Video games and a gold on the identical occasion this yr.
