Lindsey Vonn’s fall, Johannes Hoesloft Klaebo’s dominance in cross-country skiing and the controversy over Ukrainian Vladyslav Heraskevych’s helmet have marked the first half of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games, which reach their halfway point on Saturday.
The following is a review…
The medals
The first half of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games ends with Norway dominating the medal table with eight golds and eighteen metals in total.
It is closely followed by Italy, as its athletes have been on the podium the same number of times, but only six times in first place.
This is a great success for the host country, which has put a lot of effort into making a good showing on home soil.
The United States, with four golds and fourteen medals, completes the overall podium.
Among the countries with the most medals are the regulars, such as Germany, Austria and Canada.
However, there are also protagonists with less tradition on the Winter Olympic podiums, such as New Zealand (they have two medals and had not won any until 1992).
Bulgaria (its record in the same Games is three and it already has two), Belgium (it has never won more than two in the same Games and has one) or Latvia (its first medal was in 2006 and it already has one).
There are two men who, for the moment, are the owners of the medal table of the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games, with three golds each:
The Swiss Franjo von Allmen and the Norwegian Johannes Hoesloft Klaebo.
The former won the downhill, supergiant and combined alpine skiing team events.
The second, the mass start, classic sprint and cross-country skiing skiatlon.
Klaebo aims to finish these Milan-Cortina 2026 Games with six gold medals, as he did at the 2025 World Cup.
This would make him, adding his five previous gold medals, the person with the most gold medals in the history of the Winter Games.
The stars
The big star of the first week of Milan-Cortina 2026 was Lindsey Vonn.
And he only competed for a few seconds on the third day.
The 41-year-old American had set out to cap her triumphant return to alpine skiing after six years of retirement with an Olympic gold.
Even after tearing the cruciate ligament in his left knee.
But, as soon as the descent began, he went to the ground with a cry of pain.
News of the three operations he has undergone to resolve his tibia fracture have rivaled in relevance with those of the sports competitions.
Vonn was not the only U.S. star to miss the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games.
In figure skating, all eyes were on Ilia Malinin, the only man in history to successfully land a quadruple Axel in competition.
He gave the United States the gold in the team event, coming from behind against Japan with an excellent execution of their free program.
But that same free program betrayed him in the men’s individual category.
All his rivals had already failed and it looked like he had the gold in his hand, when he fell to the ice on two of his jumps.
Thus, he gave the opportunity of a lifetime to Mikhail Shaidorov, the Kazakh, who climbed to the top step of the podium.
Malinin was eighth, and quadruple Axel still has never appeared at the Games.
Lollobrigida shines for Italy
For its part, Italy had in Francesca Lollobrigida, grandniece of Gina, the famous actress, one of its great figures.
The 35-year-old speed skater proved on the ice in Milan that she had been able to combine her preparation for the Olympic cycle with the birth of her son Tommaso in 2023.
After a silver and a bronze at Beijing 2022, he already has two of Italy’s six golds at these Games (3,000 and 5,000 meters).
And, in Slovenia’s medal standings, it’s all in the family.
Siblings Domen and Nika Prevc, World Cup leaders in ski jumping, were the great hopes of the small European country to stand on the podium at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games.
As Peter Prevc, the older brother, had already been in the 2014 and 2022.
Although the little ones of the family did not achieve the goal of gold at the individual level in normal springboard (she was silver; he, sixth), they made the Slovenian anthem ring out in the mixed team competition.
The records
So far, only one world record has been broken at the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games.
This was achieved by short track speed skater Xandra Velzeboer, who completed the 500 meters in just 41 seconds and 399 hundredths of a second.
She herself was the owner of the previous world best, which she achieved in 2022 (41.416).
Speed skating (four) and its short track counterpart (two) are the only two disciplines in which Olympic records have been broken, for a total of six.
Three of them were won by the Netherlands (women’s 1,000 meters in speed skating and women’s 500 meters and mixed relay in short track).
The other three were shared by the United States (men’s 1,000 meters), Norway (men’s 5,000 meters) and Italy (women’s 3,000 meters).
Other records have to do with the number of medals.
The case of Johannes Hoesloft Klaebo, who has equaled the record of eight Winter Olympic golds, is the clearest, especially since he could take that record to eleven at this same Olympics in Milan-Cortina 2026.
Italian short-track speed skater Arianna Fontana, meanwhile, became the first woman to medal in six consecutive editions of the Winter Games, all since Turin 2006, when she was just 15 years old.
Controversies
Apart from sports, other issues have made the headlines for the Milan-Cortina 2026 Games.
Ukrainian Vladyslav Heraskevych, his country’s flag bearer, conducted an official skeleton training with a helmet featuring several athletes who died during the Ukrainian war.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) banned him from using it in competition for violating the Olympic Charter.
This is because it is considered a political act.
Heraskevych used it again in another training session, for which the IOC expelled him from the Games.
The athlete filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but it has been dismissed.
I do not regret defending my dignity, I will continue the fight
Vladyslav Heraskevych
It has not been the only politically related controversy Buzzy.
U.S. President Donald Trump called U.S. skier Hunter Hess a “real loser” after he said representing the United States gave him mixed feelings.
And that he was “not the biggest fan” of what was happening in his nation.
“He shouldn’t have applied to be on the team, and it’s a shame he’s on it,” Trump added.
Other anecdotes from these Games were more personal.
Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid announced at the press conference after winning individual biathlon bronze that he had been unfaithful to his girlfriend.
“Six months ago I met the love of my life. Three months ago I made the biggest mistake of my life and was unfaithful to him, and I told him about it a week ago.”
“I hope that committing social suicide shows how much I love her.”
“My only way to reach my goal is to put everything on the table, and hope that she still loves me,” he explained to the media.
The woman told the Norwegian press that she still found it difficult to forgive him.
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