Winter Olympic Records That Could Fall This Year
The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo arrive with a lineup of athletes positioned to rewrite history. Some records have stood for decades.
Others represent firsts that no one has achieved. These Games, set to run from February 6-22, bring together competitors at the peak of their careers with legitimate shots at marks that seemed untouchable just a few years ago.
Johannes Hosflot Klaebo’s quest for immortality
The Norwegian cross-country skier enters these Games with seven Olympic medals, including five golds. At 29, he’s already a legend in his sport.
But what happens next could place him in territory reserved for the rarest of Olympic athletes. Klaebo is a medal contender in six events. Not just a participant—a favorite.
He swept all six events he entered at the 2025 World Championships, proving this isn’t hypothetical. Four gold medals would make him the winningest Winter Olympian ever.
Five would put him at 10 career golds, joining Michael Phelps as the only athletes in Olympic history to reach double digits. If he wins six medals of any color, he’d become the first Winter Olympian to accomplish that feat at a single Games.
The math works in his favor. The form is there. The precedent exists from his World Championships performance.
Mikaela Shiffrin chasing the all-time alpine record
Shiffrin already owns more World Cup wins than any alpine skier in history—107 and counting as of mid-January. She’s broken barriers that stood for 34 years.
Now she’s positioned to challenge the Olympic record books. She currently has three Olympic medals.
Two or three more in Milan-Cortina could tie or surpass the all-time record for most Olympic medals by any alpine skier. The slalom and giant slalom remain her primary events, though she hasn’t ruled out the super-G.
The venue favors her. She won four medals at the 2021 World Championships in Cortina, the same slopes hosting the alpine events.
After her disappointing Beijing 2022 performance—three DNFs in her signature events—she spent four years rebuilding. The 100th World Cup victory came in February 2025.
The eighth World Championship gold followed. The momentum points in one direction.
Chloe Kim’s shot at the three-peat
No snowboarder has ever won the same event at three consecutive Olympics. Not Shaun White.
Not any of the sport’s legends. Chloe Kim could become the first.
She’s won back-to-back halfpipe golds in 2018 and 2022. At 25, she dominates her competition so thoroughly that analysts say she could win even at less than peak form.
Her biggest challenge heading into Milan-Cortina isn’t her rivals—it’s a torn labrum she sustained in January training. Kim says she’s good to go despite being unable to snowboard until right before the competition starts on February 11.
She’s managed pressure before. At 17, she became the youngest woman to win Olympic snowboarding gold.
She’s spent the past year focusing on rekindling her love for the sport after battling burnout and mental health struggles.
The halfpipe awaits in Livigno. History sits within reach.
Lindsey Vonn’s comeback at 41
Vonn retired in 2019. She came back five years later. Now at 41, she’s racing toward a record that speaks to both longevity and defiance.
If she medals in any event, she becomes the oldest Olympic medalist in alpine skiing history. She’s already the oldest woman to finish on a World Cup podium, achieving that in March.
The downhill remains her strongest event—she won gold in 2010 and bronze in 2018. She’s not my favorite.
Italy’s Federica Brignone leads the World Cup standings. Switzerland’s Sofia Goggia ranks third. But Vonn has won two downhill events this World Cup season.
The skill hasn’t disappeared. The body, remarkably, still cooperates.
The Cortina slopes hosted her four-medal performance at the 2021 World Championships. Familiarity counts for something when you’re racing against athletes 15-20 years younger.
Francesco Friedrich’s pursuit of bobsled supremacy
Friedrich has dominated bobsled like few before him. Four Olympic golds tie him for the most in the sport’s history.
He’s swept both two-man and four-man events at each of the last two Winter Olympics. A fifth gold would place him alone atop the bobsled record books.
Given his recent form—sweeping both events at the last two World Championships—betting against him feels foolish. At 35, he shows no signs of slowing down.
Team USA’s Kaillie Humphries presents the other side of this race. She has three golds and also sits one away from the record.
The 2026 Games could crown a new bobsled king or queen.
Campbell Wright and the American biathlon drought
Here’s a stat that surprises many: no American has ever won an Olympic medal in biathlon. Not gold.
Not a bronze. Nothing.
Campbell Wright could end that streak. The 23-year-old just won two silver medals at the 2025 World Championships in the 10km sprint and 12.5km pursuit.
Born in New Zealand to American parents, he represents the best shot the U.S. has had at this elusive achievement. Biathlon combines cross-country skiing with rifle marksmanship.
The margin for error is tiny. But Wright’s World Championships performance shows he can compete at the highest level.
Breaking through would represent more than a personal achievement—it would shatter a barrier that’s stood for the entire modern Olympic era.
The snowboarding three-peat race
Two other women share Chloe Kim’s opportunity to become the first snowboarder to win three consecutive golds in the same event.
Austria’s Anna Gasser has won both Big Air competitions since the event debuted at the Olympics in 2018. She literally owns the only two gold medals in the event’s history.
A third would cement a unique legacy. Czech snowboarder Ester Ledecka won back-to-back golds in parallel giant slalom.
She’s also a dual-sport threat, competing in alpine skiing. Though she’s skipping the downhill event to focus on snowboarding, her track record speaks to her versatility and competitiveness.
The first of these three events takes place before the others. Whoever achieves it first becomes the answer to a trivia question that will last decades.
Hilary Knight’s fifth Olympic appearance
Knight doesn’t need a medal to make history in Milan-Cortina. Just showing up does it.
She’s set to become the first U.S. hockey player—men’s or women’s—to compete at five Winter Olympics. This achievement alone speaks to sustained excellence across nearly two decades at the highest level.
A fifth medal of any color would tie the record for most all-time by a hockey player. The U.S. women’s team enters as a medal contender, setting up duels with Canada that have defined women’s hockey for years.
Knight has already announced these will be her final Olympics. The farewell tour carries weight when you’ve been this good for this long.
Eileen Gu’s freestyle skiing milestone
Gu made headlines at Beijing 2022, winning two golds and a silver for China. Now competing again, she’s positioned to become the first freestyle skier with three career Olympic golds.
Freestyle skiing is relatively new to the Winter Olympics, making this a foundational record. Gu remains a strong contender across halfpipe, slopestyle, and big air. The versatility that made her dominant in 2022 hasn’t faded.
At 24, she has time for multiple Olympic cycles ahead. But achieving the three-gold mark in Milan-Cortina would establish a benchmark for future generations to chase.
Speed skating’s world record pursuit
The U.S. trio of Emery Lehman, Ethan Cepuran, and Casey Dawson holds the world record in the team pursuit event. They set it in 2024 and won the 2025 World Championship.
Could they improve their own mark at the Olympics? The conditions would need to align perfectly. The competition would need to push them. But the combination of talent and momentum makes it possible.
Breaking your own world record on the Olympic stage represents the ultimate validation. The crowd energy, the global attention, the pressure—when athletes elevate in those moments, records fall.
The Italian advantage
Italy’s snowboarders and skiers carry extra motivation competing on home snow. The Tabanelli siblings—Flora and Miro—could become the first brother-sister duo to win gold medals in the same freeski big air event at the same Olympics.
Flora ranks first on the FIS Base List for women’s ski big air. Miro ranks fourth in men’s. Both won X Games gold in 2025. The fairytale setup writes itself when you consider they’d achieve this in their home country.
Italian alpine skiers Federica Brignone and Sofia Goggia lead World Cup standings heading into the Games. The home crowd advantage can’t be measured in statistics, but it exists.
When records meet reality
Not every record will fall. Injuries happen. Competitors have career days. Weather changes everything in outdoor winter sports.
Chloe Kim’s torn labrum reminded everyone that preparation means nothing if your body won’t cooperate. Mikaela Shiffrin’s Beijing 2022 taught us that favorites don’t always perform as expected.
The variables multiply when competition happens on snow and ice. But the possibility remains.
These athletes have put themselves in position. The venues are set.
The dates are locked. February will reveal which names get etched into history and which opportunities slip away.
Where immortality lives
Olympic records carry different weight than other athletic achievements. World Championships matter.
World Cup victories count. But the Olympics exist on another plane entirely.
The four-year cycle creates scarcity. The global stage amplifies every moment.
When you break a record at the Olympics, you’re not just the best in your sport for that year—you become part of a legacy that transcends generations. These athletes understand that.
They’ve trained through injuries, pressure, and doubt to reach this point. Some will achieve what they came for.
Others will fall short and spend four more years wondering if they’ll get another chance. The records sit there, waiting.
Milan and Cortina will determine who claims them.
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